Getting the 6-Pack Back

There's me, third along, bottom row, in a “Hunks In Trunks” competition in Walkabout in 2007. Despite visibly having a better stomach than ANY of them, I didn't even make third place.

One month. A month to get my abs back to this level of definition. When I was 18 I got an absolutely rock-solid six pack through Muay Thai. Unfortunately I gave it up because- even though it made me extremely physically fit- the actual tuition was crap. We were being taught everything wrong, and those who competed in inter club fights mostly got beaten. There were those reasons, and the time when I saw the instructor kick a 16-year-old girl in the stomach, leaving her crying on the side bench.

It was around that time that I started to focus on weight training. That way I didn’t have to get beaten up, I could see myself steadily improve and I wasn’t smashing my hands to pieces twice a week. (Even with 14oz gloves, enough sparring and pad work left me feeling like I was developing arthritis at 25.)

The biggest benefit to Muay Thai was the abdominal workout I got. The classes ran like clockwork: skipping with heavy-duty plastic “ropes” to warm up, followed by straight punches for three minutes. After this, we were given a “rest”, where we were told to lie on our backs. Of course, it was only called a “rest” to trick newcomers. The moment we were all lying down we had to lift our feet off the floor, keeping our legs straight. The next two minutes were abdominal agony. The instructor occasionally slammed a Thai kick pad into our stomachs. Sometimes he’d drop a medicine ball on our abs. Usually, the instructor’s 12-year-old daughter would use our stomachs as stepping stones.

I remember dropping the class to go to uni for two years. On returning, I absolutely collapsed when that kick pad hit me. Within a month of twice-a-week training, my stomach was granite again.

I want that stomach back, but I’m not going back to Muay Thai. So here’s the plan.

A month of abdominal workouts, using the following:

Abs machine

Pulley pray

And to keep the rest of the body alive… here’s the warmup.

I’m planning on 6 45-minute sessions per week, for a month, using only these machines. Also, my local gym runs an “abs blast” class, a 30-minute abdominal workout, that- depending on which instructor is taking the class- is pretty goddamn hard. I’ll attend these on top of the planned workout.

Let’s see how close I get to that physique by the end of the month.