How to Get Abs Back?


I use to have abs just because I am skinny. Recently I have been bulking and I noticed that my stomach is now out farther than my chest haha. When I flex I can see my abs but I want them to be viable without flexing.

I have recently been eating a lot of carbs. I have gained 15 pounds in the last couple of months.

A normal day of eating would look like:

(All sandwiches are on whole wheat)
(I have been drinking about a gallon of water everyday)

  1. Morning: 3 egg omelet with veggies and a glass of OJ
  2. Couple hours later: PB and J with glass of water
  3. Couple hours later: Bowl of oatmeal with whole milk and blue berries
  4. Couple hours later: PB and J with glass of water
  5. Lunch: Turkey sandwich with some jalapeno chips to chase it down, glass of water, little odwalla smoothie with an orange
  6. Couple hours later: PB and J
  7. Chicken, brown rice, and green beans, with a glass of whole milk

Do you guys think I should start doing cardio in the mornings? (haven’t been doing any)

Should I do sprints?

Should I start cutting my meals down to 5 and eat more clean meals with more meats?

I also haven’t been doing abs. Going to start doing hanging leg raises and machine ab crunches. Probably high rep.

As far as my training goes I have been working on mainly strength. (been getting a lot of PRs lately)

I have been doing all of the following around 3-5 reps:
Dead lifts, weighted pull ups, barbell rows, hang clean and jerk, push press, and flat bench

I do higher rep when doing:
Krock rows, barbell shrugs, step ups, leg press, front plated squats, and dips

Haven’t been doing heavy squats lately because of my hips and knees. (fuckin sucks I know)
I have been doing front plated squats to stretch out my hips lately. Hips aren’t flexible enough to get down into a deep front squat. (I cant keep the weight on my heels)

Abs are all about your diet and yours could use some work TBH. Way too much PB&J and IMO carbs in general. Do you have whey protein? Take a good look at your macro breakdown because I think its out of wack.

Basically yes, you should start eating more clean meals with some meats. (And try to get your hands on whey protein)

[quote]LazyElemental wrote:
Abs are all about your diet and yours could use some work TBH. Way too much PB&J and IMO carbs in general. Do you have whey protein? Take a good look at your macro breakdown because I think its out of wack.

Basically yes, you should start eating more clean meals with some meats. (And try to get your hands on whey protein)[/quote]

Yeah my bad, I take two scoops of Optimum 100% whey gold with water right after workouts.

Your diet is amazingly close to mine.
I do cardio and I have abs. I would recommend some hill sprints and maybe some 300-400m sprints.
tweet tweet

Have you actually built any muscle or just gotten fat?

Is the photo in front of the mirror a before picture?

WTF?? 4 years of training did you only just workout how to use the weights or something…lol joking.

Your diet looks good and make sure your doing cardio even when you are bulking.

Well you could add fish oil to your diet first of all to reduce fat/abdominal fat.

But your diet in general is pretty bad to be honest. Whole wheat is still a shitty source of carbs/ a shitty food that you could be allergic to also. You need to eat meats like chicken cutlets, grilled chicken, turkey, grass-fed beef or regular beef, salmon, tuna.

And every meat should be accompanied by spinach or another vegetable like broccoli. Possibly beans, and jasmine rice (?) or whatever the good rice is…look it up.

Another key is to eat clean 6 days out of the week, then one day eat a ton of good food and some bad food, a cheat day.

I didn’t read your workout log completely but, squats are important you should implement them to rehab the injuries that you say prohibit you… And deadlift heavy like 5,3,1, rep ragnes. Work on some weighted chins and dips if you can, and do metabolic circuits if you want to burn fat.

Basically it

[quote]Natebrochill wrote:
I use to have abs just because I am skinny. Recently I have been bulking and I noticed that my stomach is now out farther than my chest haha. When I flex I can see my abs but I want them to be viable without flexing.

I have recently been eating a lot of carbs. I have gained 15 pounds in the last couple of months.

A normal day of eating would look like:

(All sandwiches are on whole wheat)
(I have been drinking about a gallon of water everyday)

  1. Morning: 3 egg omelet with veggies and a glass of OJ
  2. Couple hours later: PB and J with glass of water
  3. Couple hours later: Bowl of oatmeal with whole milk and blue berries
  4. Couple hours later: PB and J with glass of water
  5. Lunch: Turkey sandwich with some jalapeno chips to chase it down, glass of water, little odwalla smoothie with an orange
  6. Couple hours later: PB and J
  7. Chicken, brown rice, and green beans, with a glass of whole milk

Do you guys think I should start doing cardio in the mornings? (haven’t been doing any)

Should I do sprints?

Should I start cutting my meals down to 5 and eat more clean meals with more meats?

I also haven’t been doing abs. Going to start doing hanging leg raises and machine ab crunches. Probably high rep.

As far as my training goes I have been working on mainly strength. (been getting a lot of PRs lately)

I have been doing all of the following around 3-5 reps:
Dead lifts, weighted pull ups, barbell rows, hang clean and jerk, push press, and flat bench

I do higher rep when doing:
Krock rows, barbell shrugs, step ups, leg press, front plated squats, and dips

Haven’t been doing heavy squats lately because of my hips and knees. (fuckin sucks I know)
I have been doing front plated squats to stretch out my hips lately. Hips aren’t flexible enough to get down into a deep front squat. (I cant keep the weight on my heels)

[/quote]

There’s no need to go into 100% panic alert (i.e. full blown shredding phase with lots of cardio etc). Just get diet sorted (especially as regards timing and amount of carbs). Training ~5x/week is enough exercise to shed fat for the average non ‘endomorphic’ person (provided diet is in check). Lowerning over-all calories will shed fat, but timing the nutrients well, balancing the macronutrients well, and eating enough protein can dramatically improve composition too.

9 times out of 10, when fat levels get “out of hand” during a gaining phase, it’s usually excessive carbs in relation to the other macro’s. Obviously though, 15lbs in 8 weeks is at the higher end of gains and you wouldn’t expect to make gains like that all the time (gains level out more…and when you try to force them, eating more than you really need, you will get more fat than is reasonable to expect). Having too little protein in relation to other macro’s is another reason why gains may not be lean.

Keep carbs tamed, and time them around workouts/breakfast. Anywhere from 0.5-2g/lbs in bodyweight/day should suffice (depending on how you handle them). On non training days, keep carbs lower, and on training days you will benefit from having them higher.

If you want to trim some fat (which again, I wouldn’t get too caught up in this), reduce over-all calories until you lose about a pound a week or so, or at least until your waist starts to shrink. If you do it sensibly, like not to extreme (not loads of cardio and little calories), you will lose some fat while gaining a little muscle/strength over the Summer.

Aside from the dietary advice given by previous posters, throw in some core stabilization and anti rotation work into your workouts. Over time they will make your abs pops at higher body fat levels and will also help your other lifts by having a stronger core all around.

Turrible diet is turrible. I know a few others have commented on the diet but man, that’s awful. Meals 2, 3, 4, and 6 are basically carb and fat meals, with a tiny amount of protein. Seriously just totally revamp that thing if you want to make better progress.

people have said it. bad diet. P + C or P + F. F + C = bad news. Furthermore, You have carbs in every meal, and a large amount of fat in your diet, and with little substantial protein sources. Taper your carbs around your workout, fix your sources, and read up on nutrient timing.

[quote]Natebrochill wrote

As far as my training goes I have been working on mainly strength. (been getting a lot of PRs lately)

[/quote]

if you’re getting a lot of PR’s than dont start cutting

[quote]Akuma01 wrote:
people have said it. bad diet. P + C or P + F. F + C = bad news. Furthermore, You have carbs in every meal, and a large amount of fat in your diet, and with little substantial protein sources. Taper your carbs around your workout, fix your sources, and read up on nutrient timing.[/quote]

The first sentance is utter bullshit. NO ONE still believes that splitting fat and carbs is any more beneficial than having them together. And its certainly not BAD NEWS.

The rest of the post I agree wiht.

Diet is horrible. It looks like a typical american diet with some protein powder added in. Aim for 1.5g of protein/lb of bodyweight. 25% of calories from a variety of fat sources. And the rest from carbs. Base the numbers off your total calories needed.

OP, your stomach shouldnt get to the point where it sticks out past your chest. You got fat, you didnt bulk.

If 80% of your meals looked like meals 1 and 7 you wouldnt be in the situation youre in right now.

[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:

[quote]Akuma01 wrote:
people have said it. bad diet. P + C or P + F. F + C = bad news. Furthermore, You have carbs in every meal, and a large amount of fat in your diet, and with little substantial protein sources. Taper your carbs around your workout, fix your sources, and read up on nutrient timing.[/quote]

The first sentance is utter bullshit. NO ONE still believes that splitting fat and carbs is any more beneficial than having them together. And its certainly not BAD NEWS.

[/quote]

Ah, it is? It was always my understanding that substantial amounts of carbs and fat grouped together prompted a higher insulin release. Which, especially in a situation like this where the user is grouping essentially only carbs and fats in every meal, would only lead to constant packing and storing of energy.

Lol or am i completely off base here? Can’t say that im extremely knowledgeable in this aspect, just going off of what ive heard.

[quote]its_just_me wrote:

[quote]Natebrochill wrote:
I use to have abs just because I am skinny. Recently I have been bulking and I noticed that my stomach is now out farther than my chest haha. When I flex I can see my abs but I want them to be viable without flexing.

I have recently been eating a lot of carbs. I have gained 15 pounds in the last couple of months.

A normal day of eating would look like:

(All sandwiches are on whole wheat)
(I have been drinking about a gallon of water everyday)

  1. Morning: 3 egg omelet with veggies and a glass of OJ
  2. Couple hours later: PB and J with glass of water
  3. Couple hours later: Bowl of oatmeal with whole milk and blue berries
  4. Couple hours later: PB and J with glass of water
  5. Lunch: Turkey sandwich with some jalapeno chips to chase it down, glass of water, little odwalla smoothie with an orange
  6. Couple hours later: PB and J
  7. Chicken, brown rice, and green beans, with a glass of whole milk

Do you guys think I should start doing cardio in the mornings? (haven’t been doing any)

Should I do sprints?

Should I start cutting my meals down to 5 and eat more clean meals with more meats?

I also haven’t been doing abs. Going to start doing hanging leg raises and machine ab crunches. Probably high rep.

As far as my training goes I have been working on mainly strength. (been getting a lot of PRs lately)

I have been doing all of the following around 3-5 reps:
Dead lifts, weighted pull ups, barbell rows, hang clean and jerk, push press, and flat bench

I do higher rep when doing:
Krock rows, barbell shrugs, step ups, leg press, front plated squats, and dips

Haven’t been doing heavy squats lately because of my hips and knees. (fuckin sucks I know)
I have been doing front plated squats to stretch out my hips lately. Hips aren’t flexible enough to get down into a deep front squat. (I cant keep the weight on my heels)

[/quote]

There’s no need to go into 100% panic alert (i.e. full blown shredding phase with lots of cardio etc). Just get diet sorted (especially as regards timing and amount of carbs). Training ~5x/week is enough exercise to shed fat for the average non ‘endomorphic’ person (provided diet is in check). Lowerning over-all calories will shed fat, but timing the nutrients well, balancing the macronutrients well, and eating enough protein can dramatically improve composition too.

9 times out of 10, when fat levels get “out of hand” during a gaining phase, it’s usually excessive carbs in relation to the other macro’s. Obviously though, 15lbs in 8 weeks is at the higher end of gains and you wouldn’t expect to make gains like that all the time (gains level out more…and when you try to force them, eating more than you really need, you will get more fat than is reasonable to expect). Having too little protein in relation to other macro’s is another reason why gains may not be lean.

Keep carbs tamed, and time them around workouts/breakfast. Anywhere from 0.5-2g/lbs in bodyweight/day should suffice (depending on how you handle them). On non training days, keep carbs lower, and on training days you will benefit from having them higher.

If you want to trim some fat (which again, I wouldn’t get too caught up in this), reduce over-all calories until you lose about a pound a week or so, or at least until your waist starts to shrink. If you do it sensibly, like not to extreme (not loads of cardio and little calories), you will lose some fat while gaining a little muscle/strength over the Summer.[/quote]

Thanks man,
I forgot to add that I work 4 days out of the week and have school Monday through Friday. I only get to train 3 days out of the week cause I get too tired after 8 hour shifts.

Maybe this affects it as well. Not enough training/too many carbs in my diet.

[quote]Bunny Bench wrote:
Have you actually built any muscle or just gotten fat?

Is the photo in front of the mirror a before picture?

WTF?? 4 years of training did you only just workout how to use the weights or something…lol joking.

Your diet looks good and make sure your doing cardio even when you are bulking.

[/quote]

Yeah Ive gained a lot, just didn’t know how to train right and I didn’t eat enough.

Use to not be able to bench 65 lbs and now I can hang clean and jerk 155. dead lift 315x5, bench 160x5 (could careless about bench though)

[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:

[quote]Akuma01 wrote:
people have said it. bad diet. P + C or P + F. F + C = bad news. Furthermore, You have carbs in every meal, and a large amount of fat in your diet, and with little substantial protein sources. Taper your carbs around your workout, fix your sources, and read up on nutrient timing.[/quote]

The first sentance is utter bullshit. NO ONE still believes that splitting fat and carbs is any more beneficial than having them together. And its certainly not BAD NEWS.

The rest of the post I agree wiht.

Diet is horrible. It looks like a typical american diet with some protein powder added in. Aim for 1.5g of protein/lb of bodyweight. 25% of calories from a variety of fat sources. And the rest from carbs. Base the numbers off your total calories needed.

OP, your stomach shouldnt get to the point where it sticks out past your chest. You got fat, you didnt bulk.

If 80% of your meals looked like meals 1 and 7 you wouldnt be in the situation youre in right now.
[/quote]

Alright thanks,
Before I started this diet, I wasn’t really thinking about what I was eating. I just wanted to be able to eat more than the usual day.

[quote]Natebrochill wrote:

[quote]its_just_me wrote:

[quote]Natebrochill wrote:
I use to have abs just because I am skinny. Recently I have been bulking and I noticed that my stomach is now out farther than my chest haha. When I flex I can see my abs but I want them to be viable without flexing.

I have recently been eating a lot of carbs. I have gained 15 pounds in the last couple of months.

A normal day of eating would look like:

(All sandwiches are on whole wheat)
(I have been drinking about a gallon of water everyday)

  1. Morning: 3 egg omelet with veggies and a glass of OJ
  2. Couple hours later: PB and J with glass of water
  3. Couple hours later: Bowl of oatmeal with whole milk and blue berries
  4. Couple hours later: PB and J with glass of water
  5. Lunch: Turkey sandwich with some jalapeno chips to chase it down, glass of water, little odwalla smoothie with an orange
  6. Couple hours later: PB and J
  7. Chicken, brown rice, and green beans, with a glass of whole milk

Do you guys think I should start doing cardio in the mornings? (haven’t been doing any)

Should I do sprints?

Should I start cutting my meals down to 5 and eat more clean meals with more meats?

I also haven’t been doing abs. Going to start doing hanging leg raises and machine ab crunches. Probably high rep.

As far as my training goes I have been working on mainly strength. (been getting a lot of PRs lately)

I have been doing all of the following around 3-5 reps:
Dead lifts, weighted pull ups, barbell rows, hang clean and jerk, push press, and flat bench

I do higher rep when doing:
Krock rows, barbell shrugs, step ups, leg press, front plated squats, and dips

Haven’t been doing heavy squats lately because of my hips and knees. (fuckin sucks I know)
I have been doing front plated squats to stretch out my hips lately. Hips aren’t flexible enough to get down into a deep front squat. (I cant keep the weight on my heels)

[/quote]

There’s no need to go into 100% panic alert (i.e. full blown shredding phase with lots of cardio etc). Just get diet sorted (especially as regards timing and amount of carbs). Training ~5x/week is enough exercise to shed fat for the average non ‘endomorphic’ person (provided diet is in check). Lowerning over-all calories will shed fat, but timing the nutrients well, balancing the macronutrients well, and eating enough protein can dramatically improve composition too.

9 times out of 10, when fat levels get “out of hand” during a gaining phase, it’s usually excessive carbs in relation to the other macro’s. Obviously though, 15lbs in 8 weeks is at the higher end of gains and you wouldn’t expect to make gains like that all the time (gains level out more…and when you try to force them, eating more than you really need, you will get more fat than is reasonable to expect). Having too little protein in relation to other macro’s is another reason why gains may not be lean.

Keep carbs tamed, and time them around workouts/breakfast. Anywhere from 0.5-2g/lbs in bodyweight/day should suffice (depending on how you handle them). On non training days, keep carbs lower, and on training days you will benefit from having them higher.

If you want to trim some fat (which again, I wouldn’t get too caught up in this), reduce over-all calories until you lose about a pound a week or so, or at least until your waist starts to shrink. If you do it sensibly, like not to extreme (not loads of cardio and little calories), you will lose some fat while gaining a little muscle/strength over the Summer.[/quote]

Thanks man,
I forgot to add that I work 4 days out of the week and have school Monday through Friday. I only get to train 3 days out of the week cause I get too tired after 8 hour shifts.

Maybe this affects it as well. Not enough training/too many carbs in my diet.
[/quote]

You’re welcome. Definitely increase your training days, it helps tremendously (lean gains while gaining, or better fat loss while trimming). Try splitting the routine up a bit (more training days), that helps a lot with fatigue (workouts are shorter and workload is more spread out). What is your routine? Post it and we can advise…

I do 9 hour shifts plus construction work on the house, so that’s no excuse :slight_smile: Your capacity for work will increase as you adapt (and get older)

“Maybe this affects it as well. Not enough training/too many carbs in my diet”

Correct.

[quote]its_just_me wrote:

[quote]Natebrochill wrote:

[quote]its_just_me wrote:

[quote]Natebrochill wrote:
I use to have abs just because I am skinny. Recently I have been bulking and I noticed that my stomach is now out farther than my chest haha. When I flex I can see my abs but I want them to be viable without flexing.

I have recently been eating a lot of carbs. I have gained 15 pounds in the last couple of months.

A normal day of eating would look like:

(All sandwiches are on whole wheat)
(I have been drinking about a gallon of water everyday)

  1. Morning: 3 egg omelet with veggies and a glass of OJ
  2. Couple hours later: PB and J with glass of water
  3. Couple hours later: Bowl of oatmeal with whole milk and blue berries
  4. Couple hours later: PB and J with glass of water
  5. Lunch: Turkey sandwich with some jalapeno chips to chase it down, glass of water, little odwalla smoothie with an orange
  6. Couple hours later: PB and J
  7. Chicken, brown rice, and green beans, with a glass of whole milk

Do you guys think I should start doing cardio in the mornings? (haven’t been doing any)

Should I do sprints?

Should I start cutting my meals down to 5 and eat more clean meals with more meats?

I also haven’t been doing abs. Going to start doing hanging leg raises and machine ab crunches. Probably high rep.

As far as my training goes I have been working on mainly strength. (been getting a lot of PRs lately)

I have been doing all of the following around 3-5 reps:
Dead lifts, weighted pull ups, barbell rows, hang clean and jerk, push press, and flat bench

I do higher rep when doing:
Krock rows, barbell shrugs, step ups, leg press, front plated squats, and dips

Haven’t been doing heavy squats lately because of my hips and knees. (fuckin sucks I know)
I have been doing front plated squats to stretch out my hips lately. Hips aren’t flexible enough to get down into a deep front squat. (I cant keep the weight on my heels)

[/quote]

There’s no need to go into 100% panic alert (i.e. full blown shredding phase with lots of cardio etc). Just get diet sorted (especially as regards timing and amount of carbs). Training ~5x/week is enough exercise to shed fat for the average non ‘endomorphic’ person (provided diet is in check). Lowerning over-all calories will shed fat, but timing the nutrients well, balancing the macronutrients well, and eating enough protein can dramatically improve composition too.

9 times out of 10, when fat levels get “out of hand” during a gaining phase, it’s usually excessive carbs in relation to the other macro’s. Obviously though, 15lbs in 8 weeks is at the higher end of gains and you wouldn’t expect to make gains like that all the time (gains level out more…and when you try to force them, eating more than you really need, you will get more fat than is reasonable to expect). Having too little protein in relation to other macro’s is another reason why gains may not be lean.

Keep carbs tamed, and time them around workouts/breakfast. Anywhere from 0.5-2g/lbs in bodyweight/day should suffice (depending on how you handle them). On non training days, keep carbs lower, and on training days you will benefit from having them higher.

If you want to trim some fat (which again, I wouldn’t get too caught up in this), reduce over-all calories until you lose about a pound a week or so, or at least until your waist starts to shrink. If you do it sensibly, like not to extreme (not loads of cardio and little calories), you will lose some fat while gaining a little muscle/strength over the Summer.[/quote]

Thanks man,
I forgot to add that I work 4 days out of the week and have school Monday through Friday. I only get to train 3 days out of the week cause I get too tired after 8 hour shifts.

Maybe this affects it as well. Not enough training/too many carbs in my diet.
[/quote]

You’re welcome. Definitely increase your training days, it helps tremendously (lean gains while gaining, or better fat loss while trimming). Try splitting the routine up a bit (more training days), that helps a lot with fatigue (workouts are shorter and workload is more spread out). What is your routine? Post it and we can advise…

I do 9 hour shifts plus construction work on the house, so that’s no excuse :slight_smile: Your capacity for work will increase as you adapt (and get older)

“Maybe this affects it as well. Not enough training/too many carbs in my diet”

Correct.[/quote]

I get 3 days off in a row and this is my routine:

Everything has 3 working sets. (3 sets of doing my max for the amount of reps) All of these days are back to back.

BACK DAY:
Dead Lifts - Work up to a rep of 5
Weighted Pull Ups - Work up to a rep of 3
Barbell Rows - Work up to a rep of 5
Krock Rows - 1 or 2 sets of around 17 reps (depending on how high my reps are)

PUSH DAY:
Hang Clean and Jerks - Work up to a rep of 3
Barbell Shoulder Press (push press) - Work up to a rep of 5
Barbell Shrugs - 2 or 3 sets of 10-20 reps (as many as I can until I cant get the full rep)
Flat Bench - Work up to a rep of 5
Machine Dips - Usually 3x12 just because I screwed up my left front delt doing weighted dips a couple years ago. (was stupid and going down too far)

LEG DAY:
Front Plated Squats - 10-12 reps of holding 10 pounds out in front of me. (to stretch out the hips and to strengthen my lumber curve to be able to go all the way down into a front squat)
Barbell Step Ups - 20 reps usually. (10 on both legs)
Leg Press - 3 sets of 12

I was getting a knee pain when doing front squats. (wasn’t keeping the weight on my heels, it was more on the ball of my feet) My hips aren’t flexible either so it was putting more pressure on my knees. Thats why my leg days are lame right now.

Its amazing how someone can be so lost with all of the good info on this site.

That routine is bad.

You literally have to unlearn all of the shit you think you know and restar from square 1

3 working sets? 3 working sets of your max for X reps? Really?? You are appraoching this completely backwards.

[quote]Akuma01 wrote:

[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:

[quote]Akuma01 wrote:
people have said it. bad diet. P + C or P + F. F + C = bad news. Furthermore, You have carbs in every meal, and a large amount of fat in your diet, and with little substantial protein sources. Taper your carbs around your workout, fix your sources, and read up on nutrient timing.[/quote]

The first sentance is utter bullshit. NO ONE still believes that splitting fat and carbs is any more beneficial than having them together. And its certainly not BAD NEWS.

[/quote]

Ah, it is? It was always my understanding that substantial amounts of carbs and fat grouped together prompted a higher insulin release. Which, especially in a situation like this where the user is grouping essentially only carbs and fats in every meal, would only lead to constant packing and storing of energy.

Lol or am i completely off base here? Can’t say that im extremely knowledgeable in this aspect, just going off of what ive heard.[/quote]

I believe you guys are talking about similar but not the same things.

It’s a recent “development” that P+C+F = perfectly fine now whereas we used to think only P+C or P+F is ok a la John Berardi (I think I read in a livespill that this is what Shelby and CT agreed upon). This is what Bonez is talking about; dissemination of the no longer valid P, C, and F combo “dogma”.

What you are speaking about is also true, C+F by itself absent of protein = not so great.