Flatten Your Abs!

People in gyms across the country are struggling with loosing excess fat in their midsection.  Everyone wants to flatten their tummy and the first two things people think they need to start doing is… more sit ups and go on a diet!  I’m sorry to say, but this is not the answer.  Today you can walk into a gym and watch someone do sit up after sit up for months and nothing changes.  Also, you can see someone go on some cookie cutter diet and not lose a pound.  So, why is this?  Because there is no lone secret exercise or a one size fits all diet.  We are as different on the inside as the outside, which means different foods and proportions will affect certain people differently.

The first step to flattening your abs is to start eating right for your metabolic type.  As part of my program, I show you how to determine your metabolic type.  A person’s metabolic type will determine the amount of proteins, fats and carbohydrates that are needed with each meal.  Do you really think the diet of an Eskimo would be the same as someone from the Caribbean?  Of course not!  An Eskimo will have a diet high in fats and protein (whale blubber, fish, and seals) with very little carbohydrates.  The opposite will be true of the person from the Caribbean.  They will have a diet primarily of fruits and vegetables with much smaller amounts of animal proteins and fats.

The second step is to start moving.  Humans are designed to move and be active, not sit at a desk in front of a computer screen.  Our primal ancestors would climb trees, hunt and carry their food along with jumping and lunging over obstacles.  My point is we need to be a little more primal than high-tech.  I guarantee you will get a greater overall benefit from doing pushups than using a chest press machine.  Next time you’re at the gym, see which one gets your heart pumping more.  Doing dynamic and compound exercises is the key to having a healthy, lean and strong body.  Recruiting multiple muscle groups at once will burn the most overall calories and keep the body in a fat burning state for hours after the exercise.

So, how does all this tie in with flattening your abs?  A proper diet (designed for you) along with exercises (if done correctly) such as pushups, wood chops, squats, lunges, pull-ups and deadlifts all help to strengthen the core musculature.  By doing these types of primal movements (pushing, pulling, bending, twisting, lunging) you will be able to burn more calories and start building a stronger, healthier and more stable body. 

Thanks for reading and stay healthy!

Jim

Can weak abdominals cause knee pain?

A few very common problems today that I see and hear about today are poor posture, weak abdominals and chronic knee pain. Did you ever think that all of these problems could be interconnected and related somehow? Let’s take a look and see how it all fits together.

First, we have to look the abdominal wall and the pelvis. The pelvis is supported by the abdominals, so if the abdominal wall looses coordination or doesn’t work properly the pelvis will tilt forward. To give you a visual, think of pouring water out of a bucket by tipping it forward. So if your pelvis is not supported and tips forward, this causes a shift in your spine to balance out the weight, but it also causes your knees to turn in. Contrary to that, if you tip your pelvis back, your knees will go outward. You can easily stand up and try it for yourself to see what I mean.  When the knees turn inward it is called pronation. When the knees are pronated this causes the knee cap (or patella) to shift laterally. If the knee moves laterally while walking it will start to wear the cartilage out, this then triggers a chronic inflammatory process in the knee joint.

An extreme case of weak abdominals is called Visceroptosis.  Visceroptosis means that the abdominal wall is so dysfunctional that the organs behind it can not properly be supported.  A quick test you can do to see if you have visceroptosis is to take a couple deep breaths (in through the nose) while standing and observe how much effort it takes.  Then do the same thing while lying down on your back.  If you can breathe much easier while lying on your back it could indicate visceroptosis.  

Getting the core functioning properly is very important on many levels and these are just a couple of examples mentioned in this article.  There's no point to going to the gym and doing 100 sit-ups if your abdominal wall is so screwed up it can't support the pelvis.  I recommend having a thorough assessment to make sure your abdominal wall is working properly and helping to support the rest of your body.

Thanks for reading and stay healthy!
Jim