I’m going to start this with a confession. I’m a personal trainer and I don’t and have never had visible abs.
The reason for this? The reason is the pursuit of abs and aesthetics for that matter as your main training goal bores the shit out of me.
Do I know what I need to do to get that lean, of course. Could I help someone else get that lean if they desired it, again of course.
However for me personally I’m about as motivated to getting abs as I am to getting diarrhoea. In short not very.
Growing up the people I admired most were athletes. I never went through the faze of admiring male models which bodybuilder essentially are. How they looked looks didn’t matter to me it was what they could do with their body that inspired me.
As a youth I played rugby and therefore looked up to rugby players. How many of them had visible abs. The answer very few.
Does this mean that they are unhealthy, no of course not. There some of the best conditioned athletes around. They have however built a body that is suited to their sport and performance rather than to look pretty.
Even now I follow strongman and powerlifting. Whilst there are some exceptions who do have a very low body fat percentage the majority don’t, the reason being they are chasing raw strength, power and size not dieting and sacrificing performance to look pretty.
This falls in like with my current goals Which are to continue getting stronger, fitter and more mobile. It’s the reason I first walked into a gym and it’s the reason I still do. There’s something about being strong that appeals to me deep down It feels like it matters. I could never feel like that about looking pretty after all,
I’m a man we aren’t even supposed to be pretty.
I suppose the message I’m trying to get across here is that not everyone who trains wants to be super lean with abs and that means you don’t have to be either. Everyone has their individual goals and motives for training and keeping healthy you just need to find yours. Just make sure it’s something you enjoy and something you do for yourself not because you feel pressured to fall inline with other people’s goals.
One more comment to throw in at the end to get rid of a common misconception. Aesthetics aren’t and never will be a measure of health or fitness. Just because one person is lean and the other isn’t doesn’t mean they are fitter and healthier. In fact being under 15% bf for long periods of time will probably affect performance.
Disagree? Go and do a training session with a ‘fat’ rugby team and see how unfit they are.
Thanks for reading
Dan (The kid who wanted to be Johnny wilkinson not Johnny bravo)
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