6 Reasons Your Abs Will Never Show

Check out my client David’s transformation where he put on a whole bunch of fat and abs

You’ve been watching what your eating you’ve been doing crunches and you’ve been losing weight

and body fat but you still can’t see your abs and it seems like no matter what you do you’ll never get those abs to show.

But don’t lose hope even though this video has a pretty harsh title I’m here to help and to start we have to go over the six most common reasons why your abs aren’t showing.

By learning the reasons and fixing the mistakes that I’m going to go over in this video you should be on your way to six-pack abs in no time.

But a big disclaimer is that you have to actually make the changes that I recommend you can’t just watch the video and hope that you get abs.

So let’s jump right In,the first reason why your abs aren’t showing is that you’re not choosing a variety of exercises with a full range of motion, and you’re getting a minimal negative contraction.

It’s a common known fact that the negative portion of any movement is where the most muscular breakdown occurs.

It’s also commonly known that in order for your muscles to grow and come back stronger you have to first effectively break those muscles down.

Meaning if we want our ABS to show we should definitely Focus on the part of the movement that breaks down the most muscle which once again is the negative portion.

The mistake that a lot of people are making is that they primarily focus on movements that only allow for minimal negative contraction because those movements can’t be done with a full range of motion.

Let me give you some examples to further drive this home. A Super common exercise is the crunch on the cable cross with a Rope

where you sit on your knees and you have the Rope behind your head and you crunch down.

Even though I admire this exercise because it’s actually weighted the angle that the weight is pulling on your abs is already problematic and on top of that you can only come up to neutral.

I say the angle is problematic because you lose abdominal tension before you even come up to neutral.

Meaning you have a very small negative range of motion and most of your work is done within a very short range.

It would be like doing a bicep curl only going down to about sixty degrees rather than fully extending the elbows 180 degrees.

Let’s look at another example crunches on the ground only allow you to move from a neutral position to your shoulder blades slightly elevated off the ground.

Again very little range of motion especially in the negative aspect the most negative you can get is neutral.

Leg raises on the floor have the same issue the floor will prevent you from giving your abs the stretch they can definitely use to grow.

Also with regular leg raises the angle will again take tension off the abs except in limited ranges of motion.

The plank is another example it’s simple an isometric contraction meaning no negative at all.

To get around this problem focus primarily on doing far more effective exercises. For example,

during the declined sit up the angle is set up in such a way that the tension will not come off of your abs at any point

so the negative portion starts at the top of your situp and continues all the way to the bottom because of the way the angle is setup.

This allows you to open up your abs more and get more muscle breakdown.

The same thing with a stability ball sit up you can curve your back around the ball allowing you to go past the point of neutral.

Normally the floor would be the end of your movement during a regular crunch, but with the stability ball, you have a longer negative range of motion.

Another upgrade would be leg raises hanging from a bar or hanging off the edge of a bench.

These exercises accomplish the same thing they give you more room to work the negative portion of the movement.

I’m not saying to not do those other movements but your bread-and-butter should be exercises that allow a full range of motion and provide more negative tension like the decline sit up like hanging leg raises like stability ball sit-ups.

And then sprinkling in the short range of motion exercises like crunches to help finish off your abs.

The next mistake you’re making is that you’re trying to get abs by just training your abs.

Many of you have a layer of fat covering your abs, and as important as it is to build up the muscles to have them pop out it’s also equally important to burn off the layer of fat sitting on top of your abs.

You’ll never burn off that layer of fat by doing crunches because there is no way to target fat burn.

The only way you’ll be able to burn off that belly fat is by creating an overall negative energy balance.

Requiring your body to pull energy from fat stores around your body including from your midsection.

The unfortunate truth that no one wants to hear is that your abdominal fat is usually the last to go and the belly area is usually the first place your body likes to store fat.

So even if you’re dieting and exercising this may feel very much like an uphill battle. Therefore the key to lose the belly fat and keep it off is consistency.

Find a plan that you can be consistent with. If you’ve been consistent with a diet and workout plan and still can’t lose the belly fat this leads us the right to the next reason why your abs won’t show.

Insulin Resistance. Insulin is a fat-storage hormone that will prevent fat loss when elevated and seems to increase the storage of belly fat.

According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, there is a strong relationship between abdominal obesity and the degree of insulin resistance, regardless of how much you weigh overall.

Also in a study at Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia investigated the link between abdominal fat and insulin resistance in normal and overweight women.

They found that abdominal fat was a strong marker for insulin resistance and the major determining factor of insulin resistance in women.

Now, it’s a mistake to think that if you don’t have diabetes you can’t be insulin resistant.

There are different levels of insulin resistance just like there are different levels of insulin sensitivity.

The best most natural way to lower insulin resistance is by trying a fasting diet approach.

There are many different ways that you can set up a fasting diet plan, so for the sake of time,

I’ll include a link at the end of this video and in the description to an in-depth video of how you can set up your own from scratch.

Other things that can help insulin resistance are avoiding all forms of simple sugar meaning no ice cream, soda, sweet tea, Gatorade, candy, sweetened coffee……..no simple sugar at all.

Weight training has also shown to help with insulin resistance so if you’re not weight training start doing that right away.

Some studies have also shown apple cider vinegar can prevent blood sugar and insulin spikes after eating,

but keep in mind what you eat will impact your insulin a lot more than what you supplement with.

The number four and probably the biggest mistake that I see people making is that they’re going for Super High Reps and not training their abs at a high enough intensity.

As much as it might burn to do 100 reps of crunches it doesn’t mean that it’s actually the most beneficial way to build up your abs. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

A 2009 study published in physical therapy in sport concluded that abdominal muscles were significantly more recruited with higher loads.

This doesn’t come as a shock to me because I was doing weighted ab exercises since I was fourteen years old

and it shouldn’t come as a shock to you because think about it you can grab a very lightweight and curl it until your arms are so sore that you can’t lift them up

but this is typically not the protocol that anyone would suggest for building bigger biceps.

The ABS is not some special muscle on your body they are still categorized as a regular muscle group.

Meaning they get broken down the same way and they get built up the same way as other muscles in your body.

So if you’re not using weights for your ab workouts then that is right away a huge red flag and is the main reason why your abs aren’t showing.

You wouldn’t expect your shoulders to show without first working on building them up through a progressive weight training program.

Same thing with your abs even if you cut all the fat off your body if your ab muscles were not built up you wouldn’t see much muscular definition because there would be none.

To fix this problem focus on movements that allow you to load the ABS with weight and focus on upping the weight over time with a progressive weight training model.

Meaning you can start off using just your body weight but every week make it a point to try to increase the weight load used for your ab exercises.

Some of the best-weighted exercises are declined sit-ups, leg raises, pulses, and stability ball situps.

Let’s move on to the last two reasons and I promise I’ll make these quick because I’m sure we all have things to do.

Mistake number five is that you’re training your abs either every day or simply way too often.

Some experts will advise you to work your abs no more than four times a week, and I think that’s pushing it because that means one of those days you don’t get a rest day before working your abs again.

Two to three days a week should be the most that you work your abs. Once again your abs are muscles would you train any other muscle in your body every day for maximal improvement.

Your ab muscles grow and get stronger when they repair and recover just like any other muscle in your body.

Give them the time to recover and I promise you won’t regret it.

The last reason why you can’t seem to get abs is one that nobody wants to hear and nobody in the fitness industry wants to talk about,

but since this channel is committed to the truth I have to mention it. Abs may not be in your genes.

Even though this is definitely not the most likely reason and I certainly believe that most of the people watching this video can get abs,

one undeniable reason you don’t have abs maybe because you simply don’t have the genetics for it.

Some people naturally carry more abdominal fat, and even if they get down to leaner levels with ripped arms and legs, the abs still don’t show through.

On top of that genetics play a role in determining the shape of your abdominal muscles themselves and genetics especially play a role in the symmetry of your ab muscles.

For that reason don’t obsess over how your abs compare to someone else your goal should be to make incremental progress based on yourself.

Everyone can get a flat stomach but there’s no guarantee that your abs will look as symmetrical or as ripped as some fitness model in a magazine.

And they don’t have to. The most important part of this journey is for you to become a better version of who you were yesterday.

Abs are not gonna change your life for the better, Abs are not gonna get you the girl of your dreams, and I promise you the novelty wears off.

Nobody really cares except for you. So make your transformation about you, not someone else.

That’s it guys I really hope this video has helped you out. Keep in mind most of you can get abs just follow the other 5 tips.

Make sure you subscribe to this channel and if you want a done for you transformation program with a customized diet plan,

a workout plan and an accountability coach guiding you for six weeks try my free 6-week challenge,

where your one competition is yourself and your willingness to stick to the plan. You compete against yourself which is exactly how it should be.

Right now on average my clients are losing a minimum of either twenty pounds or five percent body fat which may be just what you need to finally see those abs.

You can register by clicking the link below………………….seriously if you don’t have a solid plan I highly recommend you do this program you can access it by visiting gravitytranformation.com

Insulin resistance study