How To Get Six-Pack Abs Like Jessica Ennis

Mwahahhahahahhahahhaha...

Last week I unveiled my herculean efforts in the six-pack challenge. I was proud of the transition I made in a relatively short period of time, but the truth of the matter is I’m a personal trainer with years of experience and knowledge. I should be able to get myself in shape quickly - it’s what I do!

The real test of what I do is in the regular everyday person I help day-to-day. These people are often short on time, suffer with motivation, have less skills and abilities in the gym, often have an area of weakness/ tightness or muscular imbalance, have a limited amount of money to spend on stuff like personal trainers and are as a general rule derive slightly less enjoyment from exercise than I do.

Therefore for me to help not just one person to get a six-pack in six weeks, BUT TWO (please note the use of caps lock, bold and underlined for BIG EMPHASIS!) is perhaps the most satisfying social proof of the training plans and nutritional advice my clients are using and how I’m coaching them (I'm clearly taking full credit... Ha!).

The truth of the matter is I’ve been working with Franco for nearly six months now but from where he started and the results he’s got in this time are truly amazing.

This is a guy with a full-time sedentary job and various life commitments but with a strong motivation and very clear goal. Impressive.

However, when Claire asked me if she could join the competition I was excited. Claire is 41 and a mother of two and has been coming to my bootcamp three-times a week for over a year now. She has followed several of my internet-based fat loss plans but had never trained in the gym.

To get six-pack abs you need to consider three different aspects - posture, body composition (body fat!) and muscle tone. I wrote a blog on this a few months ago. Check it out here.

People Are Different

Both Franco and Claire needed slightly different requirements to achieve their goal. Franco had been training in the gym for a few years using big lifts such as squats, deadlifts, bench presses and pull ups. He needed coaching to work on his technique and we needed to do a bit of stretching and mobility work to improve his posture, but in general he had good muscle tone. Of most importance he needed to burn fat (and lots of it!) to see his abs.

On the other hand Claire had a relatively low body fat percentage (unusual for most of my clients - although still needed to do a bit more to bring out her abs) but priority for her was more structural/ postural work and coaching in the gym to achieve her goal. We also needed to get her doing the correct exercises at the correct intensity - i.e. We needed to improve her posture and muscle tone.

Improving Muscle Tone

For both we used the combination of heavy strength training combined with intense metabolic bodyweight workouts. Claire’s plan involved more control drills to improve posture and core strength whilst Franco had slightly more stretching to do to allow him to hold better posture.

With Claire and Franco I used big lifts to stimulate maximum metabolic disruption. These included squats, lunges, deadlifts, bench presses and rows (or pulling exercises). These are important on any plan to stimulate fat loss and improve muscle tone. 

Ab Work

You might be surprised to know I didn’t use too much ab work with either Franco or Claire. If you exercise correctly you should use your stomach muscles with the big lifts. Ab exercises don’t require much energy to do and therefore don’t burn much fat. That said we did do a couple of exercises at the end of each session because once we got down to our target body fat we need the muscle tone to get them to show.

What To Eat

If you regularly tune into my blog you’ll know the importance I place on the food you eat. The truth is abs are made in the kitchen and both Claire and Franco followed my diet plans.Again, there were subtle differences in these plans. 

Franco had to follow a slightly stricter plan because he seems to have a higher propensity to store fat than Claire. However, both were fantastic in adhering to the plans and like all my plans the goal is to make them as healthy as possible because a healthy body doesn’t store fat.

With nutrition the emphasis was on eating whole unprocessed food. We reduced (not eliminated) the energy dense starchy and sugary carbohydrates and even though we didn’t count calories we needed to reduce calories and be at an energy deficit to get the results. The balance between exercise and diet is crucial.

Rest, Recovery & Regeneration

To speed up results during a plan like this its important to consider rest, recovery and regeneration because with the accumulation of hard workouts it could be easy to burn out. Therefore I made sure Franco and Claire got to bed by 10:30pm each night, monitored stress and took time to relax during the day even if it was for just 5 minutes!

Fat Loss Supplements... NOT!

I do advocate supplementation to support this type of goal, but the key with this is to support health and none of my recommendations ‘speed up’ fat loss. You can find out what I recommended here.

Note: Most of the supplements to speed up fat loss are BS and are unhealthy.

Note2: If you overlook any of the above it is pointless supplementing.

THE RESULTS!!!!!

Check them out...

I think they both did brilliantly!

This is an extremely challenging goal and I’m really proud of their efforts. 

I thought it was also worth noting where Franco's come from to arrive at where he is. Epic, right?!

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