Abs
 

I hit the gym 4 times a week, normally legs & Chest, Shoulders, Back, and arms on different days. With this years lads holiday 4 weeks away I've been working my abs hard everyday I go (lower one day upper & side the next).

Are rest days as important with core training, or is it slowing my progress??

champ if you want abs, you need to reduce your body fat to below 10%...

Cheers daleinthedark, just did an online BMI and its 11.1. Is below 10 healthy?? If so more cardio and less carbs for me I guess.

There are scales which will do BMI and body fat for that king of thing, I believe you can pick them up from about £15 obviously but you'll want to spend around £20 upwards depending on make etc for something accurate

As for getting your abs/muscle, just make sure you are taking on enough protein to make the gain. I found to make gain I had to consume about 3000 cals a day which had as much protein as I could squeeze in with with complex carbs and very little fat and sugary carbs so that I could put on muscle.

Doing it properly you should be able to make about 1st of difference in 4 weeks, but that's as a total so you might add 8lbs muscle and lose 6lbs of fat...

Seeing abs is 95% about how lean you are

I found I didnt start seeing them until I got really lean (for me) which is usually the time of the diet I start to give up, due to weakness in will power etc

If your BMI is 11 you should be dead.

It's ok though, it's extremely unreliable as an indicator of body composition. Muscle weighs more than fat, so anyone who's remotely in shape and has a decent muscular frame will be well over 23, ie "overweight".

Abs are mostly about cutting down body fat percentage, like Dale said, to below 10%. To to this, hit a low carb diet without cutting back on proteins, and try to increase your intake of good fats (mono- and polyunsaturates, like you get in olive oil). Keep hitting crunches and planks, but I'm afraid it's a lot of grilled chicken breast and steamed veg for you m'lad.

Spot on....although I dont agree about the mono-poly fad

Saturated fat from grass fed (and well kept) animals, coconut oil, raw dairy is good for you

I agree with this to a degree

Whatever meat you are going to eat will have fat in it so it is far better to fat loss (and general nutrition) to eat grass fed and well-kept animals

however I would still try to steer away from saturated fat as much as possible if trying to cut body fat %

Much appreciated guys, I've been taking this (link below) to try gain some muscle mass also. Could someone please check it out and see if its good or bad for getting toned out for the holls? or will I never get a 6-pac drinking high carb shakes??

[Applied Nutrition] Critical Mass 2700

If you have a high intake of carbs, particularly simple sugars, your body will preferentially store the excess as fat, so if you're trying to get some abs going on you want to cut down your carb intake. This forces your body to use other sources of energy, ie your body fat, to sustain itself. I wouldn't recommend a "mass gainer" unless you were on a bulk (and even then, there's better ways of doing it).