Six-Pack Of Champions The Modern Male Has Chiseled Away His Ab Flab
Source: Record - Bergen County
Publication date: 2001-06-26


Remember the paunch?
Lots of guys had one. Bankers lugged them around the tennis court, dads danced the polka with them at bars, TV cops swung them out of the Plymouth when they meant business. At every men's club in the country, there were always a dozen of them bobbing in the pool, attached to the local lords of commerce. Younger guys had them too, even took them to the beach. They didn't apologize for the extra weight, didn't give themselves the bends trying to suck it in. In those days, guys were allowed, even expected, to taper out, to go a little soft with age.

"Larry's doing great," people would say. "Married, coupla kids, a little paunch." By that they meant he was living pretty well.

Ah, the quaint charms of a faraway time the late Seventies, early Eighties when the world was still mostly innocent of non-fat mochaccinos, digital stair machines, and personal trainers. Nowadays, no one has a paunch; we have the waist-to-hip ratio.

And we have fitness models. You know them, the guys who canter shirtless across beaches on magazine covers, throw towels over their shoulders in gym promos, appear in ads for everything from razors to bottled water and whose collective image stands in mute mockery of the average trying-to-make-a-living Joe.

The fundamental problem is this: These new models look so fit. These are not the Charles Atlas-era, oily-muscled, top-heavy balloon- figures who functioned as out-sized and comfortably unattainable male ideals a generation ago.

"The look is much less extreme now than it was in the 1970s and 1980s," says Tom Cortesi, 33, a magazine cover model who has headlined Gillette TV campaigns and done countless photo shoots over the last 14 years. "It has dropped from bigger and bulkier to leaner, and much more focused on the stomach, on the abs."

Cortesi is a living archetype. At 5-foot-11 and 165 pounds, hanging around the house in a T-shirt and sweats, he looks pretty normal. It's when he does his thing for the camera that he presents a sculpted package of muscle, his torso traced with as many ridges and gullies as a coral reef at low tide.

"Ripped, shredded, chiseled, all those words," says Mike Ryan, 35, a trainer and model who ran Gold's Gym in Venice, Calif., for years and now works with his own clients, including celebrities such as The Rock.

"It's the look everyone wants now. You're going for smooth lines, muscle separation, the cut ab muscles what we call the six-pack. But the point is that it's very lean. You see it in all the ads and movies now Fight Club is a good example. Even bigger guys want to look that way.

Peeled; did I mention peeled?" "High definition," says Jeff Henry, a 41-year-old model and actor who works steadily in TV commercials and print ads. "I take a lot of work from bigger guys because I've got it. I've got the washboard."

The washboard, the cheese-grater, the anti-paunch: Get used to it, say trainers, it's going to be around a while. Symbolically and physically, it lies at the center of the latest male body ideal. And it cannot be written off as the bizarre product of too many steroids and hormones, of freakish hours in the weight room, or even of plastic surgery. No, my son, the way to the anti-paunch lies gasp within ourselves.

And herewith a guide, for the unpeeled, from those who do it for a living:

1. Quit your day job (or at least take some time off) Once you're a ripped fella, you can lead a more normal life, but getting there is no casual hobby. When he was getting himself carved, several years ago, Cortesi put in more than an hour a day on the treadmill for four to six months, burning 1,000 calories or so, before working with weights for more than an hour. Then he had to experiment with what kinds of workouts best suited him.

Jerry Gilmore, 33, a fitness cover model who also does fashion shoots, says he now logs about a half-hour of aerobic exercise, usually running, first thing in the morning, plus 50 sit-ups a day, along with up to two hours in the gym five or six days a week. "And usually one weekend day devoted to cardio," he says.

That's maintenance: Laying the foundation took more of all the above.

"If you're starting with a normal physique, soft, a little belly, trying to build that ripped lean look, it's a full-time job," Cortesi says.

2. Stop staring at yourself in the gym mirror The sultans of shred save their posing for the cameras. In the weight room, they work like a pit-stop crew. "You work fast, you don't waste time between sets," says Henry.

Their routines reflect different body types. Naturally thin, Cortesi usually does exercises barbell bench presses, arm curls, squats and starts with weight he can lift 10 times or fewer. Such heavier lifting maintains muscle size on bodies prone to losing it. Bigger types who want to better define what they have often work with lighter weights they can lift more than 20 times.

"Doing all those reps will cut you up pretty quickly," says Gilmore.

Very few of these guys say they need more than three or four weight room sessions a week, for an hour or less, to keep the look.

"The misconception is that you have to be in the weight room all the time," says Keith Neubert, 35, a former tight end for the Jets and Philadelphia Eagles who now works as an actor and TV writer- producer.

"But what you really need to do is crank the cardio and be strict about diet."

Which brings us to tip No. 3:

3. Eat like a saint (and not the rotund St. Thomas Aquinas) Diet is the great equalizer, and its taboos are familiar: no fried food, no junk food, light on the fat, heavier on protein.

Cortesi has egg whites, turkey bacon, and toast in the morning; maybe a turkey or chicken sandwich for lunch; and lean meat and salad for dinner. Henry's diet is similar: tuna, lean meats, very little fat.

"Watching the diet is one of the hardest parts," says Gilmore. "Anyone can work out, but staying away from all that good food? Sometimes I think that 90 percent of the battle is diet."