Six Pack Evil Scientist? — Well, Not Evil But…

If you came to me and said, “I need a six pack — fast,” there’s one name that would float right to the top…

The Six Pack Doc — Kareem Samhouri — is at the bleeding edge of exercise scientist and specializes in building a strong, sexy and healthy set of washboard abs, in a hurry…

You know how Batman would hang out in the Bat Cave, coming up with new gadgets and gear to deal with the bad guys? Well Dr K hangs out in his human laboratory — he calls it a gym… — developing and testing new ways to rebuild your body.

So we asked him (actually YOU asked him — we stole all these questions from you guys) to cover five very specific and crucial core training topics. And he OVER delivered. So here he is, straight from his mad science laboratory with straight answers to your most pressing six pack questions…

5 Secrets For A Kevlar Core

Mad Scientist Reveals All…
By Dr Kareem Samhouri

#1 Ab Training Mistake

You’re spending time training your abs, specifically.

As it turns out, this is an inefficient use of your time.  The best way to train any muscle is for it to want to become more active in daily life for days to follow.  The more your muscle ‘awakens’ from your workout, the more it will grow, naturally.

Your abs are used as stabilizers.  This means that they help you keep from swaying front to back, side to side, etc. as you walk or stand up from a chair.  By learning to train your abs as stabilizers, you are beginning to communicate with your nervous system on a brand new level.  Essentially, you’re providing input to your spine, as it becomes stabilized through a truly strong core, that it is safe and you can pad your body less.

When you train your abs as stabilizers, you produce a safer environment for your nervous system.  In turn, it allows you to gain more strength and shed more cushion… or bodyfat.

Rather than working your abs out in an artificial way, over-shortening your rectus abdominus over and over again, why not try using your abs as stabilizers, doing a very dynamic routine, and ripping up your mid-section once and for all?

#1 Function Of the Core

The core has one very important function:  to protect your spine.

This is a very important job.  It is only accomplished through very precise detail and muscle automation.  If we had to think about how to perfectly recruit all the muscles necessary to keep our backs in alignment while lifting a heavy load that drops suddenly drops to the right hand side… I can only imagine.

The #1 function of the core is to be able to react to situations like this and recruit the muscles that attach to your pelvis and lower back.  Then, and here’s the miraculous part, your body is capable of firing these muscles all at once, and with equal intensity.  This is the difference between becoming truly ‘stable,’ versus merely ‘bracing,’ and bearing down.

In order to become stable, you’ll need to practice stabilizing in a smaller fashion over and over again, gradually building your comfort zone with balance reactions the wider we go.  That’s what Ab Strength Guide actually does.  It builds your comfort zone so that your body can recruit your core in the most natural way and gain the most from it.  As a result, you start using your core in everything you do… and the abs, well they just ‘pop’ right out.

#1 Tactic For Unveiling Your 6 Pack

Train your back.  Seriously.

I remember when I first started out as a trainer for the University of Miami wellness center.  This was my first discovery in muscle balancing.  I had a young woman hire me who appeared to be in reasonably good shape, she was 23 years old, and a graduate student in the school of Law.  Her main goal was to get a lean and toned, faint six pack, and she said she’d been doing all kinds of sit-ups a day for the last 6 months, but no luck.  She said she watched her diet, she was good about late-night eating, etc.  Yet she still couldn’t get the 6 pack she wanted.

…so I did a postural assessment on her and I found out that she had a posterior pelvic rotation.  I simply adjusted this by training her back and out popped her six pack abs in less than 3 weeks.  They were laying underneath the whole time, but her body wasn’t properly aligned and it was protecting her by laying down fat.

Most people forget about training the multifidi, hip rotators, and opposite pelvic patterns.  But that’s really the key to having a fully-functional, sexy midsection.

#1 Myth About Ab Training

Some people just can’t get a six pack.

Ok, outside of some sort of surgery or extremely unusual situation, this isn’t the case.  I used to think that it was impossible for me to get a six pack, because no one in my family has ever had a six pack, ever.

I was wrong.  So might be you…

I just had to get my bodyfat percentage down to about 8% and then my abs popped out.  Some people have this happen at 10%, others at 6%.  That’s why some people can naturally look stronger without having to work out as hard.  They may be storing their fat deeper in their bodies instead of sub-cutaneously or just below the skin; this is not necessarily a good thing at all.

#1 Dr K Core Training Rule

Focus on your quick energy systems.

That’s your anaerobic and ATP-PC (adenosine triphosphate-phosphocarbonate) energy systems.  They help you with bursts of strength between 0-60 seconds.  By properly utilizing these two systems in your workouts, you can dramatically decrease the time you spend getting a six pack.  It’s really incredible.

The reason that your body will spend less time getting a six pack when you deplete these energy systems first is because you will be signaling 2 things:

Increase in lactic acid deposition due to highly anaerobic activity.
Consumption of sugar, which prevents the deposit of additional fat.

Lactic acid takes a lot of energy to form, and it takes even more energy to remove.  By increasing the acidic state in your body (decreasing your pH), your body has to fight to restore its normal pH and that costs energy.  This process can go on for 2-3 days after a workout, creating a metabolic shift over time.

Consuming excess sugars is very important because all unprocessed sugar in the body turns to fat.  Drinking a half of a gallon of orange juice can be like eating a stick of butter when it comes to losing belly fat.  Anaerobic activity utilizes fast-twitch muscle fibers.  These fast-twitch muscle fibers are glycolytic, meaning that they consume sugar.

The Solution:  An exercise program specifically designed to allow you burn calories for days after a 10 minute bout of exercise; this can be a phenomenal way to prevent sugar deposit turning to fat.

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