Six Pack

That seemingly counterintuitive advice isn’t that uncommon. However, shifting focus from the gym to the dinner plate is the most important thing to do if you want your midsection to be toned and rippling, Clark Bartram said.

Bartram would know a thing or two. Now the director of media relations for the International Sports Sciences Association, Bartram and his eight-pack abs have graced the cover of dozens of magazines over the past decade. His advice is simple: While weight training is important, it pales in comparison to the importance of diet in order to achieve a toned midsection

“I had a friend come up to me and say, ‘Clark, I’m ripped underneath all of this fat. The ab muscles are there,’” Bartram said. “But some people have more fat mass to get rid of than others for abs to show. It’s 100 percent nutrition.”

Granted, your time in the gym won’t go to waste. All of your sit-ups will pay their dividend, but not until your diet is in check. Angela Smith, the former president of the American College of Sports Medicine, emphasized this notion. “You can have the strongest ab muscles in the world, but if you have 3 inches of stomach fat no one will ever see them.”

So what’s the big deal then — why is everyone trying to get six-pack abs? Well, even though people may have vanity in mind when busting their butts to trim their midsections, the health benefits extend beyond the aesthetics.

A recent study in the journal Neurology linked belly fat to an increased risk of dementia. Another study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, says belly fat doubles adults’ death risk.

So, it’s pretty obvious that belly fat is bad. It looks bad and is bad for you. Once you come to that conclusion, you can begin taking gradual steps to improve your look and your health.

The best way to do that, Bartram said, is to understand what you’re eating. And regardless of fad diets and common misconceptions, there isn’t a food group to avoid. There are good calories, good carbohydrates and good fats.

“Food is a drug and you need to control the response of that drug and understand what kind of response it elicits,” he said. “Carbs are not the enemy. Calories and fat are not the enemy.”

Instead, Bartram noted the importance of eating spaced-out, evenly balanced and planned meals. Planning meals allows you to know exactly what you will be putting in your body as opposed to eating on the fly. There are no foods that work for everyone, Bartram said. But there are foods that don’t work if you’re aiming to force your abs to the surface. Foods high in saturated fat, sugar and additives are never a good idea if you want to strengthen the stomach.

Once you have the science of the diet figured out — which is the roadblock where most seeking a six-pack trip up — then you can move on to the exercise itself.

Smith said Pilates is an effective alternative for people burned out on crunches. She noted that many famous male celebrities and athletes turn to Pilates, a sign that Pilates isn’t just a “girl thing.”

“Some people just like to sweat it out in the gym in a guy-type way and they think Pilates is for sissies,” she said. “Those 1,000 crunches aren’t going to make you a man. There are better ways to focus on different parts of the abs. Doing a bunch of sit-ups focus on a single muscle group rather than building all of them with (Pilates or yoga)”

“I’m a major believer in Pilates for ab work. It can meet the needs for a huge range of people.”

If you want to stick with crunches and sit-up variations, it’s important to make sure you have good form. Not only will bad form not work your abs, it can also injure your back.

“I think that I was taught like most people — in school where you see how many you can do in 60 seconds,” Smith said. “You’re arching your back and using all kinds of other muscles. The best way to do (sit-ups) is to really feel one vertebra going down at a time. You shouldn’t be arching your back then slamming down.”

Smith said you don’t even need to go in the gym to work your abs. By simply breathing hard and contracting your stomach muscles slowly and repeatedly, you can give your abs a mild workout.

Bartram added that resistance training is key. It is important to work both your abs and other parts of your midsection and core if you want to finally sport those washboard abs, he said. But the key is to build resistance strength, or lean muscle. Only doing a few reps won’t cut it.

Proper form coupled with resistance training and a stringent diet can give you the results you’re looking for.

“It’s not the amount of crunches. It’s not the machine you buy,” Bartram said. “It’s what you eat and how much resistance training you can do to increase lean muscle.”