Look Incredible – 10 Steps to Get Perfect Abs

Looking for a guide to have your belly turned into a six-pack? Check out these 10 steps to get perfect abs from Max Posternak.

Max Posternak is the founder of Gravity Transformation, a website focused on giving tips and training guidance for people looking to improve their fitness and lose weight. His YouTube channel has over 5 million subscribers.

Posternak’s 10 steps to get perfect abs are a guideline that you can follow that will guarantee to get you the best abdominal growth.

Table of Contents

10 Steps to Get Perfect Abs
VIDEO – 10 Steps to Get Perfect Abs

10 Steps to Get Perfect Abs

1. Get Lean Enough

It won’t matter if you are training your abs really hard every day for a long period. If you simply have too much body fat, all your hard work will go unnoticed as your abs will be hidden by a thicker layer of fat in your midline.

To drop your body fat percentage, you need to be in a caloric deficit until you can see your abs. In general, men should aim for 12% body fat while women could see their abs at around 19% body fat, but this can change from person to person.

2. Add Muscle to Your Abs

Getting lean will make your abs visible, that is true, but the six-pack is like any other muscle that needs stimulus to grow. It might sound obvious, and it is, and that is why it’s part of this list of 10 steps to get perfect abs.

And just like with any other muscle group that you want to grow, you should try to apply the same progressive overload to ab exercises. Most people do high reps when doing ab exercises, but try to add resistance and go for the 8-12 rep range with increased heavier weight can do the trick.

3. Higher Rep Abs Shouldn’t Be Ignored

Although it is with a heavy low-rep range that you get to build more muscle, the higher-rep range with lighter weight should not be ignored altogether.

Save the higher rep bodyweight ab sets for the end of your workout after you’ve done all your heavy weighted exercises, such as weighted sit-ups, crunches and pulse-ups.

4. Focus on Ab Isolation Exercises

Although compound movements are great for building muscle in your body overall, if you want to have great abs you need to choose exercises that target them specifically and that is where the isolation movements come in.

Posternak explains one study found that there was less than 20% activation on the abs during a heavy set of back squat – similar results were found in another study for the clean & jerk exercise.

5. Don’t Rely on Ab Static Exercises

Planks are likely too easy for most people to be challenging their core. That doesn’t mean you should stop doing them altogether, but you need to choose a movement that is difficult for you that targets your abs properly.

10-Minute Full-Body Workout for Beginners

For most people, a normal plank can be held for over a minute, which shows how ineffective the exercise can be. However, you can choose the long-lever plank, for example, which a study found activates 100% of your upper, lower and obliques compared to the normal plank.

6. Focus on Dynamic Ab Exercises

Next in Posternak’s list of 10 steps to get perfect abs are dynamic ab exercises. According to him, ab exercises that involve some kind of movement are better than isometric hold exercises because of the eccentric (lowering phase) and the concentric (lifting phase) of the movement.

One of the benefits you get with dynamic ab exercises is that it allows you to overload your muscles to a greater extent, compared to isometric hold exercises.

7. Focus on Rectus Abdominis

The rectus abdominis is the muscle that is commonly referred to as the “six-pack.” You shouldn’t ignore your obliques, but if you want to have perfect-looking abs, you should shift a lot of your focus to ab exercises that target your rectus abdominis – crunch type of movement or leg raise variations.

toes to bar workouts — 10 Steps to get perfect abs? Add leg raises exercises.

8. Belly Fat Won’t Magically Disappear

It is important to know that, no matter how hard you train, your belly fat will not magically disappear, even if you are doing the best ab exercises. You will lose fat overall in your body and the belly, typically, is one of the last places you will see a difference.

Be consistent and don’t be disheartened with your nutrition and exercise selection.

9. Maintain Calorie Deficit Until You See Your Abs

Although you should know by now that you need to eat fewer calories than what you use to lose body fat, most people forget that your metabolism will adjust and, every once in a while, you should readjust the number of calories you should be eating.

10 steps to get perfect abs — 10 Steps to get perfect abs? Adjust your calorie deficit.

It can be that, after a month or two, your calorie intake that used to work before is now what your body adjusted to be the calorie maintenance, hence you won’t see results again. Make the readjustments accordingly.

10. Get Enough Protein

Protein is the macro that is responsible for building muscle. Aim to get at least 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. So if you weigh 180 pounds, you should consume at least 130 grams of protein per day.

And that was Posternak’s 10 steps to get perfect abs. Click on the video below to see the entirety of his arguments.