4/8 Myth Busting Monday

Jessie K. does a chest to bar pull-up. She did Open workout 19.5 with the goal of getting her first chest to bar pull-ups and she busted out 60!
​Jessie has been working on her nutrition with Coach Audy. She has made fantastic progress working toward her body composition and performance goals. 

Myth: Six-pack Abs will Make you Happy and Are an Excellent Indicator of Your Fitness

Want to make your Coach cry? Let them know that no matter what you're able to do with your amazing body, you're just not happy because you can't see your abdominal muscles. 
REALLY? Your happiness and self worth are tied up in a myth and ideal that was created by someone else and that will likely change, again, in the next 10 ten years. 
Here's the cold hard truth, if you want to have visible abs you have to change what you eat, AND it's going to take some serious effort to get that lean. Men need to have about less than 10% body fat and women about less than 15% body fat to have visible abs. Do you know your current body fat percentage? I have been calculating this for everybody during our Spring Check-ins. 
I don't know why this particular group of muscles is the cause célèbre for fitness. Why not deltoids, hamstrings, or quadriceps? There are so many amazing muscle groups that, when developed, have so much more functional power. The trend towards visible abs is recent. In the 1980's small thighs and flat bellies were the ideal women's body thanks Suzanna Summers, Jane Fonda and Denise Austin. In the 1990's step-aerobics and TAEBO got us moving and looking more lean and mean. Then in the 2000s flat and small gave way to lean and visible muscles, but not too much. We were told to be "toned" but not bulky. Give me a break. 
Someday we are going to accept ourselves as we are and celebrate what our bodies can do! 
So, if you still think 6-pack abs are where it's at, here's a great breakdown from the smart folks at Precision Nutrition of the effort and sacrifices you'll need to make in order to have visible abs. Good luck! 

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