Essential Abs: An Intense 6-Week Program

Chapter One

ESSENTIAL ABS PLAN

Think of this book as your road map to Buff City. You know the place: It's where the flab that currently protrudes over your belt is nowhere to be found. It's where your abdomen is all grade-A muscle, with more definition than a dictionary. In Buff City, you literally stand taller, with better posture, thanks to your strong abs. There's less strain on your lower back, so it's easier for you to do everyday stuff like picking up boxes off the floor and wrestling your kid into his car seat. Your clothes fit better in Buff City—but the women there may want you to take them off more often. With Essential Abs as your guide, you'll soon be on your way to that destination, to the body you've always wanted.

    You've heard the old saying "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"? Never mind that today a 1,000-mile journey starts with a call to your travel agent or a visit to a discount-ticket Web site—the wisdom of the adage still holds true. But on your 1,000-mile trip to Buff City, you can easily take a 2,000-mile detour if your first step is in the wrong direction.

    Magazines feature new ab workouts every month, TV ads offer quick-fix fitness products, and store shelves are stocked with "super" supplements for rescuing your troubled middle. This overdose of information has led to confusion about what truly is the best path to well-defined abdominal muscles.

    The goal of Essential Abs is to get you started in the right direction and on the most direct route. Its philosophy is back to basics. This book will give you a solid foundation of knowledge and proven techniques for training your abs. No gimmicks, no gadgets, no miracles. Just results. You'll learn the fundamentals of exercise and nutrition. You'll establish exercise habits that you can build on throughout your life.

    In 6 weeks, you'll progress from a modest 3 to 5 minutes of exercise a day to a robust 3 hours a week. You'll start with four simple midsection exercises—three for your abdominals, one for your lower back—and build on that base until you're doing a sophisticated series of abdominal exercises and three aerobic workouts a week. Plus, you'll be carefully monitoring your diet to ensure that you enjoy the full benefits of this new exercise habit.

WHO IS THIS BOOK FOR?

This book wasn't written with the needs of the competitive bodybuilder in mind. It addresses three particular types of guys.

    The beginner. He's thought about exercise, talked about exercise, maybe even bought a miracle belly-reducing nutritional supplement or a piece of infomercial exercise equipment. But he's never actually established an exercise habit.

    The active man. Essential Abs is not for couch potatoes only. It's also for the guy who is active and energetic but who has never found a structured exercise program that works for him. Maybe he figured that he didn't have time to fit exercise into his busy schedule. Or maybe he never felt that he needed an exercise routine—until he noticed his metabolism slowing, his waist expanding, or the years of 8-hour, deskbound workdays taking their toll on his lower back.

    The frustrated-and-confused man. Finally, Essential Abs was also written with a third guy in mind, the one who's been working out for a while—or, more accurately, trying to work out. But he's fallen into a vicious cycle of trying and failing, starting and stopping, with a net effect of either no results or, worse, a steadily declining physique and fitness level.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
FROM THIS BOOK

If you're one of those three guys, here's what Essential Abs has for you.

* Basic abdominal anatomy

* Proper technique for the most
effective abdominal exercises

* Planning strategies and goal-setting techniques

* Motivational tips to help you harness the power of your mind

* A progressive week-by-week program

* A stretching routine that's ab-specific

* A cardiovascular-fitness program

* Nutritional advice to help you cut calories and see the results of your hard work

* Lower-back exercises, which you'll do in tandem with the ab exercises to create a protective sheath of muscle for your entire midsection

* Advanced routines

    This book is broken down into four basic parts. Part one will dispel the myths and the rumors about miracle cures and help you find a deep and sustaining motivation for staying on a fitness program. Part two will teach you principles and techniques for safe and effective abdominal training. Part three will guide you through the Core Program, a progressive ab-and-fitness regimen designed to promote wellness and trim and tone your abs. And part four will show you where to go from there to maintain your abdominal gains and improve your overall fitness.

    The best course of action is to read the first two parts before starting the Core Program. If you're dying to get started, you can begin the Core Program and read the other chapters as you go. But it's very important to read all the chapters. They all contain essential information for achieving your goals.

THE ESSENTIAL TRUTH

Ernest Hemingway said, "The best reason for telling the truth is because it's the easiest thing to remember."

    That's why Essential Abs takes the easy way out by telling you that there is no fast track from a soft middle to rock-hard, beach-ready, six-pack abs. But there is a slow-but-steady way, and that's what this book offers.

    Stick with Essential Abs, and it will stick with you. The Core Program gives you an exercise platform you can use for the rest of your life. You can build on it when you're ready for more challenging exercise routines or return to the very beginning when you need to cut back to a minimum.

    That six-pack will come when you build enough muscle and lose enough fat. You're not guaranteed to achieve it in the 6 weeks that the Core Program covers. But you won't achieve it at all if you don't get started on a solid exercise program with a sensible diet.

    So let's get going.

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Excerpted from ESSENTIAL ABS by Kurt Brungardt. Copyright © 2001 by Kurt Brungardt. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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