I frequently get questions about getting a six pack and leaning out from older men and women. Usually the lower belly bulge really starts to kick in during the late thirties and up. So let’s see if we can help my typical middle aged client (we’ll call him Louis) get on the right track.

Example: Middle Aged Man

Louis says he’s a 50-year old man who is otherwise slim. He’s 5’9, 155 pounds with a 32-inch waist, but still has some undesirable fat that he would love to get rid of especially in the mid-section. In his letter to me, he states that he does do some weight training, but is not having any luck with that abdominal fat; what can he possibly do?

Well the simple fact that he is doing any resistance training is a great first step. Having said that, the first step to getting awesome answers for yourself, is asking awesome questions. To know whether the weight training he is doing is on track I would need to know the exact weight training routine that he is doing and I don’t know that.

When you go see a trainer for specific help, they should always ask you what you are doing now so that they know where to start your journey to guarantee your progress towards your goal.

Along the same lines, I also don’t know if he is doing any cardio, because it’s not stated here. So let’s make sure Louis has the basics covered.

First of all, he should be doing at least three days a week of weight training or some sort of resistance training even if it’s body weight or whatnot, something that causes a resistance to be put on your muscles. He should also be doing some cardio, two, three, four days, whatever, it’s always in proportion and how quickly you want to drop off some weight and what you can handle in your schedule and lifestyle.

Away from the training, I don’t know what he is eating either, so if he has any room to tighten up his diet at this point, to cut out any junk or to start putting in proper spacing between his meals so that he is eating every three or four hours or whatnot as a base starting point, those are excellent and very monumental changes when it comes to getting a great six pack. That would be the first step to go to there.

There are a lot of things that he can be doing, but I don’t know if he is. Let’s just say for the sake of this article that he is doing everything perfectly. He knows what he is eating. He knows the amounts of protein, fats, carbs and so forth in his diet. He is doing his cardio. He is varying his cardio between steady state cardio and interval training and he is doing weight training as well and progressively increasing his poundages, everything seems great.

Are you in the same boat? What could you possibly do now to really get those abs popping?

I would start playing with fat and nutrient profiles, which is to say, the percentages of fats and carbs and proteins to each other.

If you’ve been trying like, say, at 40:40:20 or something like that, I would start playing around with that and seeing it’s effects for you, because those percentage suggestions are always a great place to start, but everybody is always a little bit different and so are their lifestyles. The other thing you might want to give a shot too, if you’re fairly lean and it’s just that last little bit about the mid-section is try to do some fasted state cardio.

Early morning cardio from what I’ve researched and personal experience doesn’t seem to be such a big deal for anybody that’s above around 15% body fat, but as you start to get really lean, it starts to have more of an impact and it’s worth a shot for you. I do it and when I do it pays off BIG.