What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.COM.
So let's talk today about 6 Pack Abs vs 8 Pack Abs.
Somewhere along the way 6 Pack had became not good enough.
Now we need 8.
And a lot of times people will say, 'Jeff, how do I get my 8 Pack?'
And a lot of times those questions come from people that have a 0 Pack.
So I always find it interesting.
It's sort of like, let's take one step at a time.
Let's try to get you your 6 Pack before we worry about 8 Pack.
And I'll explain to you whether or not that's even possible.
I'll tell you all these packs are not even possible at all if
all you're doing every single day is 5 sets of stuffing your mouth with a bunch of shit
food because nutrition is and always will be the number 1 key for lowering your body
fat
to reveal the abs that you have, to reveal the structure of your rectus abdominis.
And that brings us to the next part.
If your diet is in check, then where are we going wrong?
Why do we sometimes see 6?
Why do we sometimes see 4?
And why do we sometimes see 8 or even 10?
We've seen 10 before.
It's all about our structure of our abs.
It's all about the genetic set up of the linea alba in our abs.Now, I'm going to show you
a couple pictures just to sort of underscore this point.
First of all, look at this guy right here.
Now what you see here is a thicker, more blocky set of abs, ok.
Not so flat, they're much more prominent.
They're easy to see.
Obviously a low body fat level, but you can see that these are really sticking out and
prominent.
These likely come from the fact that this guy is probably doing some heavy weighted
ab work because his muscles have hypertrophied.
But it also could come from the fact that the linea alba is a little bit more tightly
sutured to the connective tissue below so that you get these deeper valleys in your
abs.
Okay, let's go to another guy.
This guy right here, you can see, he has much wider valleys here between the blocks of his
abs.
Ok, his rectus is much more spread out.
Again, nothing that he did in his training caused these deeper valleys.
It's just the fact that he has a thicker linea alba than someone like me who has a thinner
one that keeps them a little bit closer together, so therefore his sit further apart.
Next guy, you can see this one here.
Now you're looking at a little bit of uneven abs.
And again, I think all these look good.
The fact of the matter is, you've got a 6 Pack.
I'm sure you're going to be impressing people who are looking for that by having any degree
of abs.
The fact is we have to make sure that you're not losing focus and becoming obsessed with
something that you're not going to be able to have.
Which brings us to the 8 Pack abs.
With the 8 Pack, all we do guys, we look at the 3 different rows or the general 3 rows
we see of abs.
We have our top 2 that sit underneath our chest right up at the top here.
It's what sits underneath our chest ok.
Then we go down to the next row which would be our middle abs and then we go down to the
last row here which is usually even with your belly button, ok.
Where the 8 Pack comes in is below that, and some guys genetically have the ability to
show 2 more abs below.
Why?
Because that linea alba is sutured tightly down there, too.
Yes, it's going to require low body fat level.
But it's also going to require that you train your lower abs
because when you get down here, you have to make sure that, again, body fat levels are
low, but you're training your abs with lower ab movements.
Now, some of you might say, 'Well, you can't target the abs.
You can't isolate one area of the abs versus the other.'
And you're right that it's impossible to isolate one area of the abs versus the other, but
we do know that scientifically we have different nerve innervations, about 3 or 4 different
nerve innervations, to our abs that can preferentially incorporate different areas of the rectus
abdominis a little bit more favorably by the direction of the movement.
If the movement is occurring from the top down, if we're doing Top/Down movements like
Crunches or Band Crunches, things like that, we see, even through EMG,
that we see an increase activity of the upper fibers of the rectus abdominis whereas if
we're doing lower ab movements like Hanging Bar Raises or Reverse Crunches,
we see preferentially an activation of the fibers in the lower area of the rectus abdominis.
So we know we can do that.
and also, guys, you know just empirically
by doing your own ab workouts that doing Hanging Ab Raises, you feel much lower than you do
up here in the upper area of your abs, and vice versa.
When you do Crunches, you feel it much more in the upper area versus the lower area of
the abs.
So we know that it exists, but if you don't have that genetic makeup of that linea alba
crossing here below the navel underneath your belly button,
you're not going to get 8 Pack abs, and it doesn't matter how lean you are or how shredded
you are.
You can't get an 8 Pack if you don't have it.
So, that being said, what can you do?
Get that diet in check.
Here's a nice recap for you.
Stop eating those bad things throughout the day.
Get your diet in check.
Do your ab work.
I recommend 6-7 times a week.
Yes.
I always think that doing your ab work as again, as a postural muscle you should do
your ab work regularly.
It doesn't have to be long.
It could be 5-10 minutes.
That's all it needs to be, but do your ab work regularly.
Target all the areas of your abs.
Target your obliques.
Your obliques have the ability to frame the outside of your abs.
We've talked about that before.
It'll give you a tapering effect.
Train for Top/Down movements.
Train for rotational movements.
Train for lower ab Up movements.
We incorporate all these movements into our ATHLEANX Training System with over 115 different
ab moves.
So, obviously I place a high priority on it.
But the fact is, train them and stop worrying about whether it's 6 or 8.
I'm telling you.
It's all going to look good.
Especially if you can build some lean muscle to support it and look like an athlete around
it, then you're well on your way to looking the way you want to look.
Guys, hopefully you found this video helpful.
In the meantime, if you're looking for a system to help you start getting the 6 Pack, the
8 Pack,
whatever it is that you might have, then head to ATHLEANX.COM right now and grab our ATHLEANX
Training System.
And in the meantime, if you found this video helpful, make sure you leave our comments
and your thumb's up below.
Whatever else it is that you want to see, this is Washboard Wednesdays.
Once a week, ab-devoted videos, you tell me what you want to see, and I'll make sure I
cover it.
Alright guys, I'll be back here again soon.