No matter what your age, you can improve your fitness. If it's been a long time since you've exercised and you're feeling less than fit, you might think that it's too late to make a change. But you're wrong. You can improve your fitness at any age.
For both men and women who are aged 30 or older, the two most important factors that get you a six pack or a flat stomach is your Calorie Intake and How Much Resistance Training you currently do. Although eating healthy foods is great, none of that matters unless you are aware of how many calories you are eating.
KEEP YOUR BODY STRONG AND LONG
It is believed that physically inactive people can lose as much as 3-5% of their muscle mass each decade after the age 30. Along with muscle loss comes loss of muscle strength as well. Also, the body becomes stiffer, and flexibility and range of movement can reduce.
Of course, there are many factors at play when it comes to losing fat around the midsection after 40, but these four reasons should give you an idea of why belly fat gets stubborn over time. Luckily, getting six-pack abs is still possible even after this age.
Women: 1 to 2 years
From this starting point your journey to visible abs is likely to be close to 1 to 2 years. Men may be able to shave a few months off and achieve this in 10 months, but 8 to 12 months is a reasonable time frame to set your sights on if you have around 30 percent body fat.
Well, approximately 20% of all people sport the correct number of horizontal bands to achieve an 8-pack. For a 6-pack, the number is around 60%. About 15% of the general population have 4-pack abs, while 2% can only ever achieve a 2-pack.
Paying attention to your fitness in your thirties can improve both your physical and mental health. Exercise can also help you sleep better, helps reduce the risk of some conditions like type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, cancer and Alzheimer's, and can even lengthen your life.
A total-body transformation is entirely possible after you turn 30. Whether you are looking to lose weight, build muscle, or become the strongest version of yourself, I can personally attest to the fact that resistance training provides the solution.
For most healthy adults, the Department of Health and Human Services recommends these exercise guidelines: Aerobic activity. Get at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity a week. Or get at least 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity a week.
Lifting Heavy Weight Can Help
For starters, adding more weight will increase strength, which over time will increase the amount of weight you can move for moderate rep ranges, as your top-end goes up. This equates to more training volume (sets x repetitions x load), a significant factor in muscle growth.
4-pack abs are when you have 4 distinct, visible, defined muscles in your stomach area. In most cases, these are the 4 upper abs, which flatten into a toned abdomen lower down as they taper into a V-shape down to the groin area. What is this? Usually, the visible abdominals are the two blocks above your navel.
Between 14-18% Body Fat: 3 to 6 months to see your abs. If you fall within this range, you can get abs in a matter of months. But keeping your results around will require a positive mindset and bulletproof routines that you can stick with for the long haul.
Older Guys Can Still Make Gains
They found that guys between 35 and 50 years old built just as much muscle as those between 18 and 22 years old. DEXA (duel-energy x-ray absorptiometry) scans showed that the college-aged men gained around two pounds of muscle, while the middle-aged men put on 2.5 pounds of muscle.
If you have an average amount of fat, then it's going to take approximately 6 months to 1 year of fat burning and fitness training to see your abs. You'll want to focus on a calorie reduction diet, aiming to lose about 1-2% of your body fat per month. It's important not to rush.
Physical Changes at 30 – Time to Make Changes
For example, muscle tissue, eye function, metabolism, sexual function, and cognition start to decrease. Some changes are so subtle, you may not even detect a difference.
Building muscle mass after 30 isn't hard, but it does take finding the right strength-training program and being consistent with it.
In our 30s and beyond, it's harder for our bodies to maintain muscle. This is why people become less active with age. Since strength training helps our bodies hold on to muscle mass, it's essential as we get older. It also helps prevent injury.
The American Psychological Association defines "middle adulthood" as beginning at 35 or 36, and many ranges do not end until 60 or 65. The Lancet considers midlife as starting from around age 40. Modern social scientists generally agree that midlife begins around 35 to 40 and ends around 55 to 60.
After age 30, people tend to lose lean tissue. Your muscles, liver, kidney, and other organs may lose some of their cells. This process of muscle loss is called atrophy. Bones may lose some of their minerals and become less dense (a condition called osteopenia in the early stages and osteoporosis in the later stages).
But by paying closer attention to your nutrition and making a few tweaks, you can maintain or improve your body composition — and stay strong and athletic in your 30s — and beyond. Obviously, you're not 21 anymore. That workout challenge takes more out of you than it used to.
The truth is that fat loss is an important factor in achieving a six pack, because if you have too much fat covering the area, you'll never see the muscles. But you can't make fat disappear on your belly only. That's called spot reducing, and it simply isn't possible (at least not by diet and exercise alone).
The short answer: unfortunately, no. “Visible abs are very difficult to achieve for those of us who aren't genetically blessed,” says Scharff. “Everyone's muscles are built differently. Some people have deep muscle bellies, which create higher peaks in between those tendons, and thus abs are more visible.
What is the role of six-pack abs? Six-pack abs do not mean you have a strong core. It is easier to get washboard abs than having a strong core. Clean eating and the right balance of body-fat percentage are enough to show you results.