How long and how many sit-ups to get a six pack?

It's not about situps, it's about body fat. I've had a six pack my entire adult life (I'm 27) and I don't do ab work. I'm just lean from running and playing sports.

stop drinking water.

a lot of sit up variations. Plus like the other guy said its more about bady fat. Change your diet, run more and you'll burn off some of that fat and your abs will be defined more because of it.

Yes, it is more about body fat. It doesn\'t matter how many situps you do if you have a bunch of fat covering it up. If you are moderately lean though, ab work will help. I used to always do 100 situps a day and it worked well. The best way to increase muscle size is to work till exhaustion, so you might just start out doing as many situps as possible 3 times a week.

Try doing situps, leg lifts, side crunches, and trunk rotations. All will help define the abs.

"It's not about situps, it's about body fat. I've had a six pack my entire adult life (I'm 27) and I don't do ab work. I'm just lean from running and playing sports."

Gotta second that. My ab strength is pathetic, but I am pretty lean, and my abs look pretty good. Not quite a six-pack but very close. It's all about the (lack of) bodyfat.

Sean Nunn

Raytown, MO

losing overall body fat + increasing muscle to 'pop' out of the skin.

Flojo used to say she did 10,000 sit up a day. I laughed my a$$ off when I heard that. Man was she a lying piece of drug using garbage. Oh my.

So yeah follow flojo and do 10,000 sit up a day.... and use LOTS of PEDs.

Well Im 6ft1, weigh 65 kilos (not sure what these are in your american measurements) and have about 5% body fat so I dont think theres a lot more weight I can lose. As I say I dont have bad abs, I just want those stand out abs that give you the "wow" factor on the beach. Are chin ups/dips any use? I normally do about 100 sit ups 4 times a week. Maybe up it to 200 5 times? Whats worked best for you guys?

23 days - 6,784 sit ups

Hoola Hoops wrote:

Well Im 6ft1, weigh 65 kilos (not sure what these are in your american measurements) and have about 5% body fat so I dont think theres a lot more weight I can lose. As I say I dont have bad abs, I just want those stand out abs that give you the "wow" factor on the beach. Are chin ups/dips any use? I normally do about 100 sit ups 4 times a week. Maybe up it to 200 5 times? Whats worked best for you guys?

Jesus H F***ing Christ ... you are ridiculously skinny already. If you are doing 100 at a time you are already off to a good start, but that is kind of light for a runner.

I would start with 3 x 50 to start, done maybe 6 days a week. then move up to 4 x 50, 3 x 70, 3 x 90 .... etc.

That can take a LOT of time though. maybe you should hunt for a core strength video.

I just remembered what helped me: adding a medicine ball. Grip it between your hands and put it on your forehead. A 6, 8 or 10 pounder should work depending on how strong you are.

3 x 20 can be hard with one of these F***ers adding weight to the equation.

I do Sat, Sun, Mon, Wed, Fri: 150 with legs bent against the wall, 100 touching opposite elbow to opposite knee, 150 with legs up against the wall, like 90 deg., 150 more opposite elbow to opposite knee.

On Tue, Thu: 3 types of planks 3 times each for one minute, 50 knee bent situps holding dumbbells, 100 v-sits, 150 situps twice, once with one leg straight then the other.

Kinda hard to explain what I do, I just kinda made up that routine on my own and modify maybe once every couple months when I get bored. It got me rocking abs, and you probably could cut it in half and still get great results. On a side note, it also helped my form and times immensely.

Jesus man you do A LOT of core work. Dont know if I could do that much even for the best abs in the world....but if it'll cut my times well then thats a different story

You should start doing situps (more specifically crunches) with weight. There are lots of ab excercises around the web, but like with any other muscle, using weight helps not only get stronger abs, but increases the size and mass of your abdominal muscles. Plus, when you use weight you can usually reach your max at alot less reps than without weight, which helps when it takes over 100 reps without weight to start really hurting

coach puts us through 4x50 situps with 2 mins rest between each set, 5 times a week, usually before bedtime!

He says we need strong stomach muscles for running hills especially!

Why don't you all do some ab work that will actually help your running instead of concentrating on situps?

I've had a 6 pack since I was about 10 years old. So for me as long as I'm not fat I have a 6 pack. But I've seen many others do tons of ab work and were unable to get a 6 pack. It's all in the genes.

I used to have a six pack when I was younger.

Now I have a keg!

Harry Kooter wrote:

Why don't you all do some ab work that will actually help your running instead of concentrating on situps?

What would some examples be?

Flagpole Willy had some great advice a while back on this. I had that thread bookmarked, but when I got a new computer I lost it.

I will try to find the thread and bump it or post a link here to it. It was good advice, maybe he can post here and tell us again.