Building a 6-pack?

@ 6ft tall

I believe the man can start heavy lifting.

Crunches and leg lifts. I also recommend ab exercises that work your "sides", like the areas that develop love handles. I think these exercises help round out the crunches and leg lifts.

Also, if you do any kind of cardiovascular exercise, like running, or sports that involve lots of starting, stopping, jumping, this will definitely help with the six pack.

Originally Posted by drizzt3117

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smw, I would disagree that you need leg exercises to build a six pack, especially if you are as skinny as JB appears to be.

Leg specific exercises no but heavy highly compound movement will certainly aid the process. They're more metabolically stimulating and squats and deads both hit abdominal muscles pretty hard if done right.

and they're certainly going to be more beneficial than shitloads of pointless crunches.

Originally Posted by smw356

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squats, deadlifts and proper diet, doing a shitload of crunches will get you nowhere.

+1. You are in your best years of gaining muscles easy, make good use of it!

Originally Posted by smw356

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Leg specific exercises no but heavy highly compound movement will certainly aid the process. They're more metabolically stimulating and squats and deads both hit abdominal muscles pretty hard if done right.

and they're certainly going to be more beneficial than shitloads of pointless crunches.

Oh by all means he should do deadlifts, squats, and other primary exercises. I just think there are better exercises to specifically target abs, such as weighted crunches on a decline bench, or decline crunches with a swiss ball, or other such exercises.

I didn't really express myself properly before. I may have sounded like I was saying you shouldn't do anything at all. Not so, just as long as you're careful, I think you can do as you wish. (Lift heavyish weights, or whatever.)

Also,

+1 on the running or other cardiovascular exercise. I ran (and would like to start running again) and over time it really did help me lose weight and gain definition. Key word is OVER TIME. Not gonna magically drop off the instant you start. You have to do it regularly and have to do it for a decent amount of time. (Read: dedication)

I believe I read it takes like ~25 miles of running to burn equivalent of 1 pound of fat?

Doesn't mean you'll have to actually run ~25 miles to burn a pound of fat. Your muscles continue to work and burn energy hours after you run, so the cumulative effect of running shorter distances over a period of time will add up to this "25 miles" before you know it.

Cardiovascular health is super important anyway, so get to it!

Josh,
I still practice heavy lifting, but with a belt and spotter.

Would high-speed cycling be considered cardio? I ride my Schwinn just about every day, usually for about 10 miles or so.

JB

+1 on the leg lifts, crunches are more or less a waste of time compared to the amount of work done in a leg lift. Cardio helps with deffinition for sure. If I go to the gym for a couple weeks every other day just doing cardio my legs get freakin cut. Its a good idea to only do the cardio on cardio days and weights on weight days. Doing both in the same day, I heard, will actually be semi counter productive (kinda makes sense if you consider maxing on weight with worked muscles vs just warmed up for the day muscles)

At least don't do really heavy of both on the same day.
But yeah, you really should separate your "serious" cardio from your "serious" lifting. Doing both on the same day will overtax your body and you'll just be asking for injury and not gain much benefit for the extra effort.

High-speed cycling is definitely cardio. It hits your quads more than in running (unless you do a large amount of hill work in your running). If you exercise proper form, it's also usually considered a lower-impact (ie. doesn't bang you around as much) form of exercise than running. Just make sure, whatever you do, that you get your heartbeat up a significant amount and keep it there for at least thirty minutes. That is kind of the general "baseline" of a cardio workout.

What's a significant amount? Well, that's different for everyone, and there are a ton of websites that talk about a boatload of different methods of determining this threshold. Go find some and take your pick if you are so inclined. Myself? I don't worry about that part of it that much. As long as I'm breathing hard and sweating, my heart rate is elevated and I consider myself to be doing cardio. I don't really care about strapping a monitor on me and fretting about keeping my HR at 70% of my max for X amount of time and all that jazz. I do good to get myself out the door at all!

I would suggest mixing up your cardio if it's possible. In other words, do one day on your bike, then the next time go run. The more you vary your exercises, the less prone you are to exercise-specific injuries and the more balanced your total musculature becomes.

Current wisdom states that swimming is also a great "all-over" cardio workout. I hope to get to test this out for myself when I transfer to university this fall and get access to their super-nice rec center!

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Good luck.

Originally Posted by JetBlast

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Hi folks,
I have started a standard exercise routine now just to keep my muscles toned up. I would like to work on my abs a little more, does anyone have any tips or exercises that work, etc?

TIA
JB


Don't listen to the "crunches" crap... cardio, cardio cardio. Period. Crunches will strengthen your core but cardio is what burns fat. Try eating right too. Consider your eating habits, metabolic rate... etc. This is pretty complicated. So Eating right and doing cardio. Work on that with some crunches thrown in but don't think a six pack is the product of crunches.

Originally Posted by JetBlast

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Josh,
I still practice heavy lifting, but with a belt and spotter.

Would high-speed cycling be considered cardio? I ride my Schwinn just about every day, usually for about 10 miles or so.

JB

Lol... many pro cyclists consume around 6,000 calories a day. Need we say more?

If you are only doing cardio you are going to lose muscle.

In addition to crunches and abs-specific work, you'll have to do cardio and possibly watch your diet.

To show abs, you not only need developed abdominal muscles, but equally, if not more importantly, you have to lose most of your belly fat, even if you have only a thin layer. The problem with that is that there really is no way to 'spot-train' off fat. In other words, you can control to a degre how big your muscles ina specific area are, but you canot control how or where your body deposits or metabolizes it's fat stores.

So essentially, you have to ensure that you have very little body fat and really get shredded.

One word of caution, though; even if you really are done growing, at your age, I would absolutely not recommend any cutting/shredding supplements to achieve this, because your own natural DHEA and testosterone levels are much, much higher than an adult's, and that means it should be reasonably easier for you to accomplishg what you're looking to do by proper diet and exercise alone. Taking supplements that affect metabolism and/or hormonal levels could actually have negative consequences for you and screw up your own system.

The amount of absolutely terrible advice in this thread is staggering