● Body Book
Ripped
CRUNCHFREE ABS
PHASE I: 3 WEEKS: D AY I
See your abs in six weeks with this full-body workout.
1A FRONT SQUAT
By Robert Yang Photographs by James Michelfelder
Sets: 4 Reps: 6–8 Rest: 0 sec.
Grasp the bar with hands at shoulder width and raise your elbows until your upper arms are parallel to the floor. Take the bar out of the rack and let it rest on your fingertips. Step back and set your feet at shoulder width with toes turned slightly out. Squat as low as you can without losing the arch in your lower back.
■
Believe it or not, if you want a ripped midsection, training your abs directly should be last on your list of priorities. The first step is cleaning up your diet. The second should be this program, which focuses on training the biggest muscles in your body to burn the most calories (thereby shedding the fat that covers your abs). In six weeks, you’ll already be revealing some of the definition you’d buried beneath your belly. And you’ll be shocked at how few abs exercises it took to get there.
1B DUMBBELL OVERHEAD PRESS How it works ■ This program comes in two parts. You’ll do one phase of workouts for three weeks and then another threeweek phase with different workouts. The first part has no direct ab training at all, just circuits of tough, big-muscle exercises like squats and presses that rev up your metabolism. In the second phase, once your body-fat levels are down enough to reveal some ab definition, we’ll target the six-pack with a hanging leg raise and weighted crunch variations, two of the most effective moves for adding dense ab muscle that pops through the skin.
Sets: 4 Reps: 8–10 Rest: 0 sec.
Directions Alternate each workout (Day I and Day II) for three total sessions per week, resting a day between each. So you can do Day I on Monday, Day II on Wednesday and Day I again on Friday in the first week. (You’ll do Day II’s workout twice the second week and repeat the cycle.) The first three weeks make up Phase I. After the third week, switch to the workouts in Phase II, which are done the same way. Exercises marked “A”, “B” and “C” are done in sequence. Perform one set of each, and then rest after C. Repeat for the prescribed number of sets. Note that in Phase II, the ab exercises are A and B (not C), so rest after B.
Stand with feet shoulder-width apart and hold a dumbbell in each hand at shoulder level. Brace your core and press the weights straight overhead.
CHOOSE LOADS THAT ALLOW YOU TWO TO FOUR REPS MORE THAN THE PRESCRIBED NUMBER.
1C SQUAT Sets: 4 Reps: 8–10 Rest: 60 sec.
Nudge the bar out of the rack and step back, setting your feet shoulder-width apart with toes turned out. Bend your hips back and squat as low as you can without losing the arch in your lower back.
