V abs go by many names and is an area highly liked by women. Names for it include the adonis belt, love line, moneymaker, Marky’s mark, the Michelangelo muscle, v cut, super v, apollo’s belt, illiac furrow and v shaped abs. The actual technical name for v abs is the inguinal crease.
V abs are actually not a muscle. They are just two cords of ligament stemming from the hip. For most people V abs will not show unless you have a low body fat and for this reason most physically active people do have the adonis belt.
Right, so I told you that you need a low body fat to get the adonis belt first, if I was to estimate I would say you need to be around 6-10% body fat. I am first going to talk a bit about how to burn fat to reveal your v abs since this is the crucial step.
There are many ways to burn fat, but the basis is that you must create a calorie deficit. There is a number of ways to create a calorie deficit. These include doing lots of exercise and eating slightly below maintenance. You could also just eat a lot less than maintenance and do enough calorie burning exercises.
The fastest way I have found to create this calorie deficit is through intermittent fasting. By going long periods without any calories, you can build up a big deficit pretty easily. Intermittent fasting also mimics intense exercise. When you fast, insulin goes down just like in intense exercise. Human growth hormone goes up in both, and HGH is known for its fat burning and muscle growth properties. Intense exercise and fasting both increase fat burning by releasing fatty acids. Amino acid movement in both also goes up. As you can see, fasting and exercise are very similar, but guess what? Fasting lasts for 24 hours, and intense exercise only lasts for an hour tops usually. Eating a clean diet and avoiding processed foods will also help you on your way to creating a calorie deficit.
Now that we have the diet sorted we want to increase this calorie deficit further. We do this through training. Resistance training is key during dieting. If you are in a calorie deficit for long periods of time, without resistance training, your body will not only burn fat but also burn muscle, which is not what we want as muscle is good for keeping your metabolism high.
To ramp up the calorie burning, factor in some HIIT workouts, some steady state cardio and metabolic circuits and aim to burn fat at a rate of 1-2 lbs per week and in no time you will have v abs.