All the actors in Bollywood now sport the regular six pack abs. Fitness adverts of all sorts routinely show men and women with dazzling white teeth and impossible-looking abdominal muscles. All this has made abs the symbol of fitness and good looks. But are abs such a great idea? Celebrity trainer Anna Kaiser thinks they aren’t. I do too, but my opinion matters not at all.
…As do her clients: celebrities such as Shakira, Hilary Duff, Kelly Ripa. But she believes that concentrating too much on the abs may mean that the back is not strong enough, causing imbalance. She believes it is important to concentrate on the entire core.
Some people become quite obsessed with the idea of possessing six-pack abs. It becomes their single, solitary goal in life.
Abs are all very well, but we like things like food and drink; you know, the things that make life worthy living?
Some of us don’t really see the point in severe deprivation and self-denial for the sake of a body part that isn’t even visible unless you're OK with posting abs selfies on social media (which basically declare one to be a self-obsessed, narcissistic show off). So really what is the point!
But most of our abs are invisible because of the layers of fat that cover them. To have a realistic expectation of visible abs, it isn’t enough to just do stomach crunches; the real requirement is to get body fat percentage down to between 10 and 7%. Doing thousands of situps and crunches won’t help unless one has low body fat.
Yes, yes, it’s mostly sour grapes but really who likes muscles that bulge that much? Lean muscle is nice, but what really does one do with all that bulky, bulging, muscle and sinew?
Some of us are suspicious of the guy with six pack abs! Either he’s self obsessed or something of a player – or both!
Some people seem to think that these are abs. And biceps for that matter!
For those of us who can never realistically expect to develop those highly desirable six pack or eight pack abs, there is always photoshop! Or body paint! Or this!
The journey to developing those elusive abs is a long and tough one. One needs self-control, hard work, dedication and a few more qualities I don’t really have nodding acquaintance with.
Some of us want the bacon. Apparently, you cannot have both. It would be nice if bacon gave me abs. But since it doesn’t, I and most of us on earth won’t have abs either.
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