The way to a woman’s heart is through his stomach, writes Andrew Anthony
A small request to male readers: before you settle down to this article, place a hand on your stomach. Move it around, trace the girth, then clasp whatever flesh is sticking out above your belt (female readers may care to perform the same procedure on the nearest available man). Unless you are an athlete or a gym-addict or just plain genetically lucky, the sensation is unlikely to be particularly satisfying or pleasant.
Indeed, the chances are that you’re probably experiencing right now a mixture of guilty apathy and physical self-loathing. But let’s not dwell on that for the moment.
Instead think about replacing that bulging mass in your hand with a slim, fat-free, taut stomach, a rippling model of corrugated muscle, the kind of Greek- statue abdomen you can see displayed nowadays by just about anyone from Australian soap stars to bubble-gum pop singers, the sort of washboard lower torso that sells male underwear and fragrance. The gut, in short, of a god. Is that an attractive idea?
Most, after a brief reverie of wish- fulfilment, will dismiss the thought as either amusing or irrelevant or even an offensive example of body-fascism. Some will think it all too much effort. But for a significant and growing minority, the idea of a “six-pack” stomach is not only attractive but plausible.
Not long ago, the chiselled-stomach look seemed to be the preserve of marble deities and Nuba wrestlers. Even bodybuilders, as recently as the Fifties, seldom boasted prominent abdomens. The same goes for elite athletes. For example, Mark Spitz, winner of seven swimming titles at the 1972 Olympics, looks positively underdeveloped when compared with today’s hewn Olympians.
Of course, there are all sorts of anomalies and counter-trends, but what seems beyond doubt is that over the past 10 or 15 years the male abdomen has become a visible part of the culture. Suddenly, a sculpted midriff is a tantalising possibility inspiring a combination of envy, insecurity and desire – in other words, the standard responses to mass advertising. The six- pack abdomen is no longer a Platonic ideal but a democratic right. Suddenly everyone can own one.
I say suddenly because although I have been aware that the abdomen phenomenon has been flexing itself for some years, I didn’t really pay it serious attention. I had noticed gutbusters like Marky Mark and Peter Andre and seen that footballers had taken to lifting their shirts in celebration. I knew that homo-erotic images and male narcissism in general had become more prevalent of late. But none of it affected me.
Then, without warning, early last month I felt something in the pit of my stomach. Walking along a subway I was stopped in my tracks by a poster that said “Lose Your Gut”. The ad, for a magazine called Men’s Health, had a man with his T-shirt raised to expose wrought perfection. “Get a Stomach Like This.”
In normal circumstances, I would barely have registered such a crass message but I felt heavy with too much booze and TV. I was restless and in need of a new life; in need of a new outlook. But what I really needed was a new stomach. Crucially, this is not the same thing as wanting a new body. What was so clever about the ad is that it didn’t offer the absurd promise of pumped-up biceps and pecs. It specifically targeted the stomach.
Unlike women, men tend to store their excess fat in that lost region just above the hips. It’s here that the dreaded “spare tyre” inflates and the unsightly “love handles” form. The gastronomic, alcoholic and lifestyle abuses that men inflict upon themselves are most likely to show up here in some or other ghastly shape. It is your mistakes made flesh.
The solution is simple. Rid yourself of the evidence and you eliminate the sins. Flatten your stomach and you straighten out your life. This slimline philosophy is made doubly appealing by the large contradictions that surround it. We are living through an age of bodily paradox at present. As we become more fitness- conscious, we also become more obese. As we get fatter, the images reflecting back at us get slimmer, more muscular.
The more social and economic equality that women achieve, the greater seems the urge for men to establish physical superiority. And as women become the subjects of their own destiny so are men forced to shape up as objects of desire.
At a London gym, Marc Jones, the supervisor, spends a lot of his time gauging the fitness of busy city workers. Although the gym business has enjoyed a massive boom over the past decade , Jones has not detected a correlating improvement in fitness levels. What has changed is the the level of expectation. Customers want immediate results. “If they could buy a body they would,” says Jones.
While impatient for physical transformation, the men who come to Jones frequently specify ripped abs (rippling abdominal muscles) as their goal. Jones has learned, though, that there are a number of misconceptions commonly held by those looking to work on their stomachs. The first is that you can target fat loss. You can’t.
The second is that the more you exercise your stomach muscles, the more they will show through. Unless you lose the fat that sits on top, it doesn’t matter how big your abs are, no one will see them. With the oblique abdomen muscles that form the torso’s side walls – love- handle territory – further development can have the opposite effect to that desired.
There is no mystery as to how you get a flat abdomen. All the fitness magazines essentially proffer the same advice. Combine a low-fat diet with regular aerobic fitness to reduce body fat and at the same time build up your abs with repetition exercises like the time- honoured stomach crunch. These sit-ups are a matter of quality, not quantity. Doing 500 a day is unnecessary. Ten minutes of hard crunching is more effective.
A number of things happen to us when we exercise. When an average man undertakes vigorous aerobic training for an hour, he burns around 660 calories, of which 60% is carbohydrate and 40% fat – approximately 29g weight loss. He also temporarily ups his metabolic rate for a period of time after the exercise, which means he is burning energy from food at a faster rate and will lose further weight.
But the body reacts defensively to weight loss. As you get fitter your underlying metabolic rate slows down because your body becomes more efficient and therefore burns fewer calories.
“There is,” says Paul Bedford, who works for the YMCA training instructors, “nothing health-related to the `six- pack’. It is pure aesthetics. Most people over-concentrate on abs. All the muscles in the body are arranged in pairs. If the erector spinae muscles in the back are neglected it leads to poor posture, rather like guy ropes on a tent pulling only one way.’
The abdomen is subdivided by one tendon running down the middle and a number crossing the muscle horizontally. “It is how deep these tendons lie beneath the body’s surface that gives the impression of rippling muscle,” explains Bedford.
As it turns out, I do not find this crushing news. The truth is I never wanted a washboard stomach. I’d just like to rein it in a little. This might not be as difficult as it seems. Just below the navel, the main abdomen muscle tucks behind cummerbund-like lateral muscles called the transverse abdominals. When you pull on these, your stomach recedes. The more you do it, in 10-second instalments, the tighter your stomach becomes.
It may be difficult to put a timespan on how long it will take for you to get your stomach back on your side of the belt. But do hold your breath.
For those men whose body-fat percentages are up around the 20% mark and above – “endomorphs” who naturally tend towards obesity – it would take a herculean effort of self-discipline and control, every bit as psychological as physical, to get down to the levels of fat – five to 10% – that would enable abdomen muscles to show. But let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you do have what it takes. Will you then get a set of fab abs?
With obvious respect to the testicles, the abdomen is the true fortress of manhood. Anatomically, it houses the viscera and, metaphorically, we like to invoke it in terms of visceral masculinity. “He lacks guts,” is traditionally one of the worst insults one can level at a man. When the going gets too tough, we can’t “stomach” it. And how do sportsmen feel when their best physical efforts come to nothing? “Gutted.” Perhaps it’s no surprise that men should want to shield this vulnerability with some conspicuous muscular armour. It’s a badge of courage. According to Men’s Health editor, Phil Hilton, however, the ripped ab is “a badge of athleticism”. And, if you believe the hype, we can all wear it. At least, that’s the theory.
I asked Marc Jones whether it would be possible for me get ripped abs, and how long it would take. Jones estimated that I probably had around 15% body fat (below average for a 35-year-old) and that I would require in the region of eight months to a year to achieve a “washboard” stomach. However, I have the advantage of being an ectomorph – naturally lanky and bony. Sam Fussel, writing in his bodybuilding classic Muscle: Confessions of an Unlikely Bodybuilder, memorably described this type as “skinny fat … a human boneyard covered in an opaque veneer of lard”.
Also, at a certain point, the levels of a hormone known as leptin begin to fall. Leptin decreases appetite; when levels decline your appetite increases and it is difficult not to eat.