How to Get Abs in 60 Days: Full Training + Nutrition Guide

the complete, simple roadmap to get 6-pack abs in the next 60 days.

main picture of a man holding measuring tape around his waist, in a post titled How to Get Abs in 60 Days: Full Training + Nutrition Guide
SOURCE: WWW.FREEPIK.COM

So, you’re looking to get abs in 60 days? You’re not alone – Abs are a very strong health indicator and a bodybuilding achievement. It also doesn’t hurt that they’re very attractive to most people. 

So understandably, many people (especially around summer time) look for the best and quickest way to get visible abs, so they can live the fantasy of walking around shirtless without feeling any embarrassment (do you relate?). 

But while abs may look great, we should emphasize that they are an indicator of a holistic approach to diet and exercise. Think of abs like the reward you get for getting your exercise and nutrition on lock. They ARE coveted for a good reason – they only come AFTER you do the right things first.

With that said, if you also want dream of saying goodbye to shirts, then keep reading, because in this article we’ll share the complete training and nutrition roadmap to get strong abs in 2 months. 

Including the full six pack training plan (using only 2 exercises), an 8-week diet plan for 6-pack abs, and the only three supplements you’ll need that help speed up the process.

How to Get Abs in 60 Days: Full Training + Nutrition Guide

Now, before we get to the specific exercises and diets for achieving a six pack, we must first talk about body fat.

Everyone’s body is unique, that’s to say, not everyone stores fat in the same areas at the same body fat levels. Some people for example don’t store much fat at all in their abdominal area, so they gain visible abs at higher body fat levels than others and appear more fit because of that, 

while some other people store fat primarily in their abdominal area, which might make it harder for them to gain visibility in their abs at higher body fat percentages. However, with that said, the body fat percentage numbers we’re about to reference apply to the majority of the population. 

So, what’s the best body fat percentage for abs?

The Best Body Fat Percentage for Abs

picture showing pictures of men and women at different body fat percentages.

As you can see in the picture above, from 40% to 30% (men) and 45% to 30% (women) – the abs are completely covered in a thick layer of fat, and are not visible.

At 25% (men) and 25% (women) however, you can start to see the upper abs peeking out more. 

It’s only at 20% – 10% (men) and 28% – 18% (women) that the full set of abs finally becomes visible. Anything below that is entering into the shredded zone, where most bodybuilders try to be at for pro bodybuilding competitions. And this range (20 – 10% for men and 28 – 18% for women) is the six pack abs sweet spot for most people.

At this range — if you’ve sufficiently built your abs through training — you get to enjoy all the benefits of having visible abs: 

  • Strong core.
  • Aesthetic look.
  • A healthy lean body.

Without suffering from the dreadful effects of being too lean: 

  • Low energy levels.
  • mood swings.
  • Diminished libido.
  • Difficulty gaining muscle. 

This is the range you probably want to be aiming for if you’re looking to get abs. Getting down to a low enough body fat percentage is necessary for ab visibility, but it’s only half the story. After all, if you don’t have a strong set of abs underneath, there won’t be anything there to show.

Training

To get a strong, visible six pack you need exercises that engage the abdominal muscles, However – with that said, not all ab exercises are created equal. And while doing any ab exercise is better than doing none, some exercise are far less effective than others, and will mostly waste your time.

If you’re looking to get abs in 60 days, You need the right kind of exercise to get the most out of your time and effort, we’ll talk about those in a minute,

But before we share the most effective ab exercises to get abs in 60 days, let’s talk about common mistake that most people make when trying to exercise abs, so you can achieve results as quickly (and safely) as possible.

Common Ab Workout Mistakes to Avoid 

When we talk about ab workouts, most people imagine a 5-10 minute, fast-paced, circuit style workout. One with a lot of jumping and movement. And if you search for ab workouts online, you’ll find countless fitness influencers promoting this style of workout for ab training.

while these workouts are certainly better than nothing, and they will help you burn calories, they aren’t the best option for ab muscle development. and it’s due to the fact that, because of the great amount of movement in these routines, they end up just being glorified cardio workouts. But most importantly, these fast paced workouts don’t get the abdominal muscle close enough to failure to trigger any meaningful muscle development.

A much better way to tackle ab workouts is to treat them like any other muscle, by using focused workouts that isolate the ab muscles, and applying enough load on them to cause muscle fatigue and eventually muscle development, or what is called “progressive overload” where you increase the amount of load on the muscle each workout progressively to stimulate muscle growth. Either by adding more weight or more reps.

And luckily for you, you only need 2 exercises to do all of that.

The Most Effective Ab Exercises

Here are the most effective ab exercises to get strong abs in 2 months:

1. Weight loaded crunches: 

For the loaded crunch, you can either use a cable machine or a normal plate. Let’s start with the cable variant, the cable crunch.

image showing a man perform the cable crunch workout.
Image by Training.fit

For this exercise, you want to kneel down and crunch while allowing your lower back to arch as you squeeze the weight with your abs. Be careful not to yank the weight with your hands, which will take the tension off of your six packs – where you want it to be.

If you can’t find a cable machine, you can use barbell plates. Here’s how to do plate weighted crunches:

image showing a man perform plate weighted crunches.
Image by Training.fit

Simply lay on your back, lift your legs up and join them together like in the picture, with your knees at a 90 degree angle. Now, hold the plate to your chest and lift up with your upper section, using your abdominal muscles.

Remember to get up using your abs not your back.

Sets and Reps

For this exercise, you want to do 3 sets of 10 – 12 reps, 2x a week. Always taking your last rep to failure, where you can’t complete the full rep despite maximum effort.

Make sure to add extra weight or extra reps every time you train. Keep it heavy enough to be a challenge, but light enough that you can maintain control of your form. This exercise targets the full six pack, but more emphasizes the upper 4 pack. For targeting the lower abs we’ll refer to the 2nd workout.

2. Leg Raises

image showing a man perform the leg raise exercise.
Image BY: www.inspireusafoundation.org

The leg raise is also one of the most popular, and the most effective ab exercises. You can either use a pull up bar or a roman chair if you have access to one.

As the name suggests, you want to raise your legs all the way to the top, try to get your knees all the way to chest level, Just remember to focus on your lower abs for maximum effectiveness.

If you find that full leg raises are too difficult, you can do bent knee raises, like this: 

image showing a man perform knee raise exercise.
Image By: www.inspireusafoundation.org
Sets and Reps

Do this exercise for 3 sets of 10 – 20 reps, 2x per week.

To progress this exercise we recommend adding reps, start with 3 sets of 10, adding 1 rep a week until you can confidently do 3 sets of 20. From there you can add ankle weights to up the difficulty, or go slower on the way down on each rep. 

Full Six Pack in 60 Days Training Plan

Here’s your full 6-pack abs in 60 days training plan:

image showing a workout schedule for how to get abs in 60 days.

Do You Need Cardio? 

While cardio is actually Not required for gaining visible abs, it’s recommended for a couple of good reasons:  

One benefit of cardio is that Combining cardio and ab workouts leads to smaller waists than does training alone. On top of that, the cardio should allow you to consume more calories without the risk of gaining fat. as you burn more calories you can consume more calories.

It also doesn’t hurt that active people are more successful at keeping the weight off after losing it. So consider adding between 2 to 5, 30-minute low to moderate intensity cardio sessions per week to your plan.

And if you’re looking for cardio workouts, then click here for a list of highly effective cardio workouts you can do at home or in the gym.

Nutrition 

You might’ve heard the saying “abs are made in the kitchen, not the gym”. There’s a good reason for that.

You can keep working your abs until you’re blue in the face, but until you get lean enough you won’t be able to see your hard earned abs. Which is where nutrition comes in. If you’re looking to get to your optimal body fat ab range (10-20% for men and 18-28% for women), then you need to optimize what you eat, Which includes calories, protein, carbs and fat. 

How Many Calories Should You Eat to get Abs

To calculate how many calories you need in a day we’ll use a simple formula: 

Take your current body weight (in Kgs) and multiply it by 22.5 – 27

Or 

Take your current body weight (in Lbs) and multiply it by 10 – 12

The number you get is your daily calorie intake.

How Much Protein You Should Eat to Get Abs

To calculate how much protein you should eat to get abs, use the following formula: 

Take your GOAL (not your current) body weight in Kgs and multiply it by 1.8 – 2.25

Or 

Take your GOAL body weight in Lbs and multiply it by 0.8 – 1 

Which gives you how many grams of protein you’ll eat every day.

How Much Fat You Should Eat to Get Abs

Make sure to eat 50 grams of fat per day, whatever is left over after you have your calories, protein and fats accounted for are free calories. feel free to fill them out however you want. yes – even the occasional junk food (if it’s within your daily caloric limit).

60-Days Diet Plan for Abs 

Here is your 8 week diet plan for abs:

image showing diet plan for how to get abs in 60 days.

And while hitting your daily targets is much more important than the types of food you eat, You should generally look to prioritize whole foods that are minimally processed, instead of overly processed junk food (you know it’s bad for you).

Now these numbers should work for most people, but not everyone’s the same, some people have higher metabolism than others, which means they can consume more calories without gaining fat, While others have slower metabolisms driving down their daily caloric needs.  That doesn’t mean these numbers won’t work, but it means that you might need to adjust based on your individual results.

And if you’re looking for the best foods to fuel your body, here are the 3 best foods to add to your six pack abs diet (and 3 to avoid).

Biggest Diet Mistakes to Avoid

When it comes to diet, most people focus on the wrong things, which can not only slow down their progress, but even cause them to give up and reverse all of it. and if you want to get abs in 60 days, you can’t risk any hinderance.

So here are the 3 biggest diet mistakes you should avoid to get a six pack: 

1. Cutting too quickly: 

By far the biggest diet mistake is losing weight too quickly, and while a strong drive is admirable, sometimes people are so eager to lose weight that they end up losing too much weight quickly, Which is a guaranteed way to lose muscle and strength on top of rebounding all the weight back as soon as the diet is over. 

For safe, sustainable weight loss, you want to lose between  0.5 – 1% of your bodyweight per week. No more. Remember: sustainability is the name of the game. 

2. Relying Too Much on The Scale

The second common mistake is all about the scale. the scale is a very important tool in your diet, but it’s just that: A tool. It’s not your best friend. And sometimes, it won’t accurately reflect the progress you’ve made, especially when your goal is to lose fat and build muscle at the same time, 

So how should you track your progress? Here are some other helpful ways to track your weight loss progress: 

  • Taking progress photos: progress photos give you a clear visual indicator of how much weight you’ve lost, they also help give you inspiration and build confidence. Just remember to take the photos in the same lighting, at least once a month. You might feel embarrassed taking your first progress picture, but you’ll be very grateful yo did once the results come in and you see the difference. 
  • Waist measurements: taking monthly waist measurements once a week will give you a more accurate measurement of your progress, even if the scale or the mirror aren’t telling you the full story.  just remember what we said about everyone being different, sometimes your waist will be the last place you’ll lose fat, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any progress being made. Keep at it and you’re guaranteed to get there.

3. Creating Too Lean of an End Goal

Once you go below the 8 – 10% range for men and 18 – 20% zone for women, you’ll start encountering some nasty side effects, things like: 

  • Extreme hunger 
  • Reduced libido 
  • Low energy 

Remember the sweet spot is 20 – 10% for men, and 28 – 18% for women, stick to this range and you’ll be ok. 

Supplements

Now, like any good supplement, these are optional. But if you’re looking to get abs as quickly as possible, they will help you considerably. So here are the only 3 supplements you’ll need: 

1. Protein Powder: 

This popular supplement will help you hit your required daily protein levels more easily, you can take 30-50g protein shake after your workouts. 

2. Creatine Monohydrate:

This potent supplement is one of the only legal supplements to offer a meaningful boost in strength and muscle mass.

5 grams everyday should be enough. Creatine Monohydrate offers no reported side effects. but there is one catch however: it only works for about 25% of the population. So you’ll have to test it to see if you respond. 

3. Caffeine:

This is also a popular supplement, as it boosts both your energy and your focus. Your body will build a tolerance for Caffeine after a while, so consider only taking it when you feel really low in energy. Alternatively, you can try cycling off of it for two weeks to feel its effects again. 

Conclusion

So, that was how to get abs in 60 days. from the most effective ab workouts to focus on, complete diet plan for abs, and the specific supplements that speed up the process.

In 2 months, If you follow these core principles: 

Stick to working out 2x per week using the mentioned workouts and applying progressive overload, Consuming the recommended amounts of calories, proteins, fats and carbs, and Taking the right supplements as needed,

You should be enjoying a marvelous six pack that you can showoff anywhere confidently, or worst case: you’ll be in a much healthier place and well on your way to getting one. 

Just remember, consistency is key. Don’t get discouraged if it takes a bit longer than planned. Because No matter how long it takes, you’ll eventually get there if you stay consistent. 

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