You’ve seen the ads on TV of good looking men and women with amazingly flat stomachs featuring “rippled” muscles. Those rippled muscles are often called “ripped” or “6-pack” abs. The truth is, six-pack abs are universally coveted but only a few possess them. The reason is they look awesome on anybody; six pack abs beat flab any day! They are the mark of a good looking guy or girl. Unfortunately, how to get a fast six pack of flat and sexy abs fast is one of the best kept secrets in the health and fitness world!

Six pack abs are easy if you follow certain principles and as long as you put yourself into a cohesive approach of exercise and diet.

Let’s start with a simple exercise you can do to create amazing abs: crunches. Crunches, reverse crunches, placing your elbows on the arm of the weighted ab machine, adjusting the line of action of the cable crunch and the abdominal wheel are some exercises that properly stimulate your abdominal muscles. These exercises are the perfect lower abs workout, and they work!

As you do crunches, both how you do them and how many you do are important. In other words, you need to do crunches in correct form, and you need to perform a lot of them to get the best results. For example, the most basic crunch can be done as follows: Lie flat on the floor, knees bent, and legs about 1-2 feet apart. Alternatively, you can place your lower legs up on a chair or bench.

How fast can you expect to obtain amazing six pack abs that are the envy of your friends? Well, it can’t be done in a week, that’s for sure. At the minimum, you need to allow six weeks to build your abdominal muscles and then increase your aerobic activity to start burning the fat.

Increasing your aerobic activity is important, but let’s be clear: cardio is definitely NOT the best way to lose belly fat and reveal your six pack abs. Most people who make this mistake end up hitting plateaus they can never overcome. Cardiovascular exercise is activity involving the large muscles, such as your legs and help make your heart and lungs stronger. In activities like running, walking, cycling or dancing, you speed up aerobic metabolism, making your body spend stored and available calories.

In addition to exercise, you need to change your eating habits in order to see a flat stomach and to get a fast six pack of rippled abs. Cut out the body fat by changing what you eat and make sure you have a balanced diet instead. Again, using a 2000 calorie target as an example, Monday might be 2000 calories, Tuesday 2100, Wednesday 1900, Thursday 2200, Friday 1800, and so on to average 2000 calories for the week. Remember, dieting does not mean not eating food. Dieting means eating healthy good food.

So the secret on how to get washboard abs is to begin with crunches on the floor, graduate up to crunches with workout machines at a gym, and be sure to pay attention to what you eat every day. It will take diligent effort, but ultimately you’ll obtain the great body you seek!