How to get a Flat Stomach & What to Avoid at the Gym

By Martin McFadden BSc (Hons)

In order to be successful at thinning your waistline you must have a basic understanding of how the abdominal muscles function and how your body burns fat. The first thing that needs to be understood is the difference between fat and muscle.

Fat beyond your naturally required levels (9-19% males & 14-25% females) is an excess and is primarily stored in layers on top of muscle tissue. Muscle is made up of fibres that contract or shorten to produce movement. Fat cannot turn into muscle and muscle cannot turn into fat! However, you can lose muscle and you can gain fat. That's what happens to most people.

So if your goal is to thin your waist line and have a flat stomach, the first thing you need to do is to decrease/eliminate the layers of fat that are on top of your abdominal muscles. We all have a flat stomach, it's just some of it is covered by excess fat.

The most effective way of flattening your stomach is a combination of:
1. Strength training
2. Cardiovascular exercise (short, hard workouts)
3. Stable blood sugar (keeps you from adding additional fat and makes it easier for the body to use body fat for fuel).

Before you perform a movement of any kind think about what you are about to read below. Try to understand how these muscles work and therefore why they are important for movement.

The Abdominal muscles

1. The Rectus Abdominis (the ‘six-pack’ muscle), the long slender muscle that runs vertically down your abdomen from your lower ribs to your pubic bone. It flexes the torso so the ribcage moves towards the pelvis.
2. The External Obliques, which cover the front and side of your abdomen and run diagonally from the lower ribs to the pelvis to form a ‘V’ shape. They bend the torso sideways and rotate it to the opposite side when flexing forwards.
3. The Internal Obliques, directly underneath the external obliques but running in the opposite direction form an inverted ‘V’ shape. They help the rectus abdominis bend the torso forwards, as well as rotating it to the same side to which they are attached.
4. The Transverse Abdominis (TVA), a flat sheath of muscle lying underneath the rectus abdominis, running across the torso. It originates in the lower spine, and wraps around and attaches to the ribs, abdominals and pelvis. The TVA is the deepest abdominal muscle and it acts like a girdle to flatten the abdominal wall and is therefore the bodies own natural corset!

The TVA however does not work alone but part of a system called the ‘inner unit’, which consists of the pelvic floor, the diaphragm and certain deep muscles of the spine called the multifidus. The TVA and the pelvic floor muscles co-contract (if one is firing the other one does automatically). The muscles of this ‘inner unit’ are known as The Core.

The Core is what connects your lower body to your upper body. It is like the frame of a bicycle. It doesn’t matter how flash, or shiny or strong the wheels are, if your frame is not strong enough the wheels will come off! Then the bicycle is of no use, and it is the same for your body.

All movement starts from the TVA – or at least it should! (Research shows that when an individual’s core is functioning correctly, the inner unit muscles ‘turn on’ approximately 30 milliseconds before arm movement and 110 milliseconds before leg movement). In many cases, due to inactive lifestyles, people no longer have control over this muscle and so develop bad posture, back problems and poor movement quality.

Things to avoid at the gym.

1. Is nutritional advice that works for one person suitable for another? At what point is the individual and their specific personal nutritional needs and requirements taken into account? Is everyone of the same metabolic type?

2. Traditional exercises have little effect on core strength as they do not work the core stabilisers. Fixed resistance machines you find in gyms do not challenge your core to stabilise your spine as you are generally seated and/or strapped in.
Training your core and learning how to switch on your TVA helps stabilise your pelvis and spine, builds better balance and helps to correctly align your body to improve posture. When you work to strengthen and stabilise your core, you strengthen your body’s powerbase.

How can I improve my core stability to help flatten my stomach?

There are many exercises that improve core stability-Pilates is one of the best known stability programmes. Others involve exercising from an unstable base such as an exercise ball.

Stable blood sugar is the key.

And most importantly, you must stabilize your blood sugar. This is by far the most important factor when it comes to burning away that excess body fat and keeping it off. To effectively stabilize your blood sugar you must feed your body frequently; like every 2-3 hours. The key is to give your body only what it needs at that time. Your body burns calories 24 hours a day, so, why would you only feed it once or twice a day? Give your body the fuel it needs-Generally: vegetables, fruits, nuts, berries, whole grains, and proteins (chicken, fish, beef, eggs, etc).
If you like the sound of having the function of your TVA assessed including the proper tuition in how to effectively exercise this muscle and integrate its use into your exercise programme, or if you would like to see what your metabolic type is or for more information, then please contact me:

Martin McFadden:  07736 930 003, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it