The Most Important Person You Need to Listen to If You Want Great Abs
I’ve learned there is only one person who can teach you how to get into great shape
Getting great abs is extremely difficult, and not just for the vast majority of people, for everyone. I know this because even though I am one of those lucky enough to have been blessed with “great ab” genetics, getting great abs was still extremely difficult, even harder was trying to keep hold of those great abs.
But I did succeed and in doing so learned some important lessons, including who the most important person you should listen to is. Before I get to all that, below is a picture of me from several years or so back:
Here is another picture of me, this one unedited and from when I was young and thought taking a mirror selfie to show my sixpack off was cool:
So yes, I once had great abs, but here is an important lesson I learned about getting great abs, and this is the reason I’m sharing the above pictures, seeing me with great abs has no doubt made you think that I’m a good person to get tips off.
But if it has done, you have made a great mistake, just because someone has great abs does not make them an expert. All it does is show that they know what they themselves have to do to get into great shape.
One of the most important lessons I learned about gym training is to be very careful who you get advice off, and just because someone is in great shape does not mean that they are someone you should listen to. After all, for all you know their technique may be terrible and they may be slowly destroying their body.
On the flip side, just because someone’s not in great shape does not mean that they are not someone you should listen to. Some of the best training and dietary advice I have had has come from people not in great shape.
Some people just love learning about exercise and/or diet but at the same time are not interested in putting in all the hard work and sacrifice needed for them to have great abs themselves. Some people were in great shape but for whatever reason, maybe they have an injury, or other priorities, now are not.
So a top tip, don’t assume people in great shape are all-knowing gym gurus just because they are in great shape, but on the flip-side, don’t assume that just because someone is not in great shape that they are not an all-knowing gym guru.
Confusing I know, and it begs the question how do you work out who the best people to get advice from are?
Here are my own credentials, I’m not a personal trainer, I’ve never entered any physique competitions, I’m just a guy who had good abs. Does that mean I’m a good person to get advice from?
Well, I can tell you how to do exercises correctly, I can tell you what exercises I do, I can also tell you what exercises I believe are key for great abs — squats and deadlifts for anyone interested.
And there are more things still that I can tell you, like for example, that no two people are the same, which means that just because training a certain way and eating a certain way works for one person, does not mean it will work for another. I can tell you that anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.
I can also tell you what I believe are the six key elements to getting great abs:
- A willingness to study exercise
- A willingness to find the type of gym training most suited to your body
- A willingness to keep to the type of gym training most suited to your body
- A willingness to study diet
- A willingness to find the diet most suited to your body
- A willingness to keep to the diet most suited to your body
I can tell you all this, what I can’t tell you is what exercises you should do. I don’t have the qualifications to do that, I don’t know how to teach you to learn about your own body.
Note that last sentence, I don’t know how to teach you to learn about your own body.
The best people to get exercise and dietary advice from if you want to get into great shape, are those who know how to teach a person to understand how their body reacts to exercise and diet.
I can’t do this for you; all I know is how to train and eat right for my body. So if you were me, I could tell you what you would have to do to get into great shape.
But as you’re not me, well then maybe I’m not the best person to listen to. Because here is the thing, one thing I haven’t told you, I can eat chocolate and cakes non-stop and not put on a single pound in weight.
Does that change anything about whether I’m a good person to get let’s say for example dietary advice from?
Yes, it does, if you are like me it tells you I am a good person to listen to, if you are not like me, it tells you that I am perhaps not.
So another top tip is, find people with similar body shapes and metabolisms to you, and see what they have done to get into great shape.
The question is then who is the best person to teach you to understand how your body reacts to exercise and diet. One thing is for sure it’s not all those ads you see telling you that you’re only months away from getting those killer abs of your dreams if only you do what they tell you.
Unless you’re already a gym expert, never listen to these ads, here is why, the people who get killer abs off the back of following the advice in such posts are the ones who were already well on the way to having them in the first place. They had already put in the hard work and made the sacrifices needed, it is just they required that last little push to get over the line.
And that’s where the advice in these posts which promise that you are only months away from killer abs comes into play, as they can help some people work out what it is they need to do to get over that line.
Work out is very much the word, but not gym workout, mentally work out. Note the one common trend in every tip I have given to this point, I worked out that this was best for me. I worked this out, nobody told me, I worked it out.
This is the biggest lesson I have ever learned about how to get great abs: the key to getting great abs is not in gym workouts or diet plans, but in just how willing you are to spend enough time to learn which gym workouts and diet plans work best for your body.
So another top tip, the key to killer abs is not in the gym, the gym is important obviously, but equally as important is learning about how exercise and diet affect your body.
I still haven’t answered the question of who is best able to do this, of who the most important person you need to listen to is, and before I do, first I’m going to tell you who else you need to listen to along with this person.
Everyone. That is the answer. At least in the beginning. You need to listen to everyone who claims to know anything about exercise and diet.
By doing so you will become a student of the exercise and dietary worlds because by doing so, by listening to everyone who claims to know something you will learn to work out who the best people for you to listen to are, and who the people you should not listen to are.
For example, I am naturally cardio fit, and if I do too much cardio I lose muscle ten times faster than I can put it on. So if you are a person who puts on weight ten times faster than you can lose it, getting exercise advice from me is hardly going to be of use to you, but if you are like me it may be of great use to you.
The thing is though only you can answer the question of whether you have a metabolism like me or not. Meaning only you can work out whether it’s wise to listen to me or not.
That means if you wish to get into great shape the person you most need to listen to is yourself.
Nobody can tell you how to get into great shape, they can teach you how they themselves got into great shape, they can teach you how others got into great shape, they can teach you how to do exercises, they can teach you about diets, they can teach you a lot of things, but they can’t teach you how to get into great shape. Only you can do that. Because only you can work out how your body responds to different exercises and diets.
Listen to those who claim to know about exercise and diet, read magazines, read posts on the Internet offering training advice, but never for one second make the mistake that I made when I first started training, which is assuming that someone else can tell you how to get into great shape.
They can’t. That’s why the most important person you need to listen to if you want to get into great shape is, and I’ll say it again, yourself.
Final words
I used to follow exercise routines from magazines, I used to follow workout plans given to me by people who were in great shape. I used to follow this, that, and everything that told me if I followed it I would look amazing.
Despite this, I did not get in great shape until I worked out that only I could work out how I could get into great shape. Nobody else could tell me, just as nobody else can tell you. You have to work it out for yourself. And you do that by learning to listen to your body and working out how exercise and diet affect it.
A friend of mine works as a personal trainer, I will finish with what he always says to his clients:
What I’m going to do is teach you about exercise and diet, what I need you to do is teach yourself about yourself. If we both do our jobs, I have every confidence you can get into great shape.
That’s all from me, thanks for reading!
If you like this post you may also enjoy the following:
The Three Key Factors You Need To Understand To Get Great Abs
Five Things You Can Do to Get Great Abs
Ten Simple Ways to Lose Weight and Keep It Off
To learn more about me see this link, to support me click the link below:
