Washboard stomach Body fat percentage
In order for the muscle and tendon plate system for a washboard stomach to be visible, the body fat percentage must reach a certain level. For this reason, athletes say: “You don’t train a washboard stomach, you train it away”. The body fat percentage should be at least 12% or less for a completely defined six-pack.
With a body fat percentage of approx. 15%, the upper abdominal parts of the straight abdominal muscle (rectus abdominis muscle) are already visible. If the body fat percentage is below 15%, the remaining parts of the straight abdominal muscle and the external oblique abdominal muscles (M. obliquus externus abdominis) become increasingly visible.
At a body fat percentage of 12% or less, the lower parts of the straight abdominal muscle become visible and the first ramifications of the veins above the groin region become apparent. Body fat percentages of less than 10% can only be obtained with enormous effort and discipline in training and especially in nutrition. Before competitions, strength athletes/bodybuilders reduce their body fat and water percentage enormously.
They are then in a so-called “dry state” to present their muscles in a more defined way. The body fat percentage of such athletes is below 6%.However, such a value should only be aimed at by competitive athletes who participate in competitions. The extent to which the body fat percentage can be reduced to such a minimum and at the same time enormous muscles can be built up is a sensitive issue among strength athletes.
Nutritional methods such as the Anabolic Diet can at least prevent a loss of strength and muscle cross section. Everything else is usually accompanied by extreme supplementation. Actually, this is about a slogan on postcards or T-shirts.
However, there is a little bit of truth in it as well. Many athletes, especially young men, who have already had a washboard stomach or at least come close to it, know the problems that a washboard stomach causes. Not only does it take a lot of discipline to get to a washboard stomach, but also to keep it upright and to put it in a homogeneous muscular relation to the rest of the body.
Some athletes quickly get into a so-called fitness mania and want to reach more and more extreme goals. Such athletes are rarely satisfied with themselves and have a healthy view on their success. This phenomenon occurs similarly often with anorexic people.
Such people see themselves from a completely unimaginable and unrealistic perspective. In order to achieve more and more success, the nutrition and training for a six-pack is made even more extreme. The kilos are gradually disappearing, the body is becoming increasingly sinewy and colleagues at work are already worried about you.
Rumors are already circulating that you are ill or that a serious incident in the family has happened, whereupon psychological problems are the trigger for the extreme weight loss etc… Furthermore, the environment complains. The washboard stomach with all its training and nutrition has taken on too much, so that time with the girlfriend/boyfriend, family or friends falls by the wayside.
At first, friends only envy the visible success and the looks you get in the pool, but often real envy is quickly added. It is then said that the chest or arm muscles would not match the pronounced abdominal muscles of the washboard stomach and so on. So in the future more attention will be paid to the chest and arm muscles, which in turn leads to less time for other things in life.
The game goes well for about 3 months, until you finally get really psychological problems and your girlfriend strokes your tummy on the couch at noon, beaming after two pieces of cake with 500 kcal each were consumed. The friends sign up again to watch soccer on the weekend and feel confirmed in their opinion that all this is just male ego around thirty years old while drinking beer. So the newly bought pants are hung back in the closet and you can only hope that you have taken pictures of yourself with your own washboard stomach. Because what always remains are your friends and not the washboard stomach.
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