Stubborn Mid/ Lower abs

Dovers

Height- 6'0
Weight- 80kg
BF- Unknown (guessing about 12 %)

Body fat lowering is going ok so far but lower stomach is stubborn as fcuk and hit a bit of a plateau so looking for any advice please


Typical Diet & routine-

Wake up- Protein Shake + creatine

Breakfast- two rice cakes with cottage cheese or/ Boiled egg with one slice of toast (scraping of low fat spread) and small portion of beans or/ Small bowl of porridge

Lunch- Wholegrain roll no butter with lettuce, tomato, cucumber and tuna or chicken

Afternoon- Cottage cheese or banana and cup of green tea

Dinner- Chicken or salmon/cod with large portion of steamed veg (brocoli/carrots/cauliflower) based in olive oil

Bed- Protein shake

Snacks- the odd piece of fruit/ handful of almonds/ cashew nuts

Water- 2 litres/ 3 on training days
Tea /coffee- few cups a day with sweetener, no sugar

_________________________________________________


Gym- 3 days per week

Monday- five mins warm up and stretches/ 20 mins HIIT on thread mill full outy sprint for 30 secs/ 1-2 mins recovery, 4 intervals and 5 mins warmdown

Wednesday- Compound upper body- press ups/ dips/ bench/ incline bench/ lat pull down etc

Fri- Lower compound- Squats/ deadlift/ leg press/ leg curls etc

Saturday- on occasion more HIIT as above

AB excercises 3 20 mins sessions included to above consisting of variety of- leg raises/ sit ups/ plank/ side plank/ bicycle....

Booze- Not much 3-5 bottles every few weeks


Thanks

corkcomp

based on the program you mentioned I think you could probably drop the protein shakes and maybe add another day of cardio for a longer duration - 40 - 45 minutes of sprinting (not full HIIT)

Dovers

Yes I was thinking about dropping the protein shakes except perhaps on weight days but I want to maintain the lean mass that I have. Would my daily dietary protein intake be enough on its own? Perhaps it would. I'll try upping the cardio as suggested see if that has any effect

Transform

the cardio is not the issue - you really need to get the body fat checked (calipers) to verify your scores and get it rechecked every 2-4 weeks. Also get a trainer to go over the program with you and make sure that your lifts are going up.

Dovers

Yeah my lifts are going up every week but still on working increasing them. I think it probably does need more cardio as there is not much in there really.

Dan@IPG

i can't tell if any of you are serious or just having a laff

celestial

Cut the protein shakes as mentioned - you're talking about saving upwards of 600 or more calories per day!

Second tip is to mix up your exercise routine - be honest with yourself about how hard you are working and change up your routine every 4-6 weeks.

Dovers

celestial wrote: »

Cut the protein shakes as mentioned - you're talking about saving upwards of 600 or more calories per day!

Second tip is to mix up your exercise routine - be honest with yourself about how hard you are working and change up your routine every 4-6 weeks.

Well the shakes I take are about 120 cals each so its actually less than 250 cals but yeah I may cut them out on non weight training days. I may mix up the routine a little but I guess the staples will still have to be there, squats/deadlifts etc. Started throwing in some HIIT early morning too so see how that goes

Thanks

Transform

what is your current bench, deadlift and squat weight? the 20mins you do on abs could be spent wayyyyyyy more wisely.

Dovers

Transform wrote: »

what is your current bench, deadlift and squat weight? the 20mins you do on abs could be spent wayyyyyyy more wisely.

Numbers are not great but I'm working on getting it to a repectable level

Bench- 40 kg

deadlift- 50 Kg

Squats- 50 kg

How would you use the 20 mins better? More time on the compound lifts?