Nah; it’s about diet and untypically low body fat. You had the abs; they just weren’t visible. Your generation didn’t have them for the same reason that it didn’t have an omnipresent trend of unhealthily thin female models and actresses.
You can blame fashions on “the media”.
Your BMI is a better prediction of health than if you have a six pack or not. Just like bulging biceps don’t mean you’re not one heartbeat away from a heart attack.
And a definitely agree that genetics matter. My husband was Puerto Rican and he always looked good, even when he got a bit chubby because his fat was stored evenly all over his body. Not like mine which goes directly on to my thighs.
Having very low body fat is about the only way for you to show a washboard stomach. Sometimes that’s a side-effect of performance, sometimes it’s a goal in itself. Larger stomach muscles in general show better even at body fat levels high enough to obscure the shape, but you get abdominal hypertrophy from the same processes as any other skeletal muscle; from doing stuff that makes you stronger. Doing hundreds of situps is usually counterproductive.
You can get great abs from great core strength. CrossFit athletes generally don’t do situps, crunches, or much direct ab work at all. Toes to bar, L-sit pull ups, and GHD situps do come up in workouts sometimes, but not every day, and not in the 1,000s of reps range at all. Just google CrossFit and tell me that you need to do situps to have great abs. What they do for core strength is a sprinkle of gymnastics-derived movements and some Olympic and straight weight lifting. In CrossFit, ab exercise is usually maintaining a tight core and strict center line under load.
Hell, just take a look at regional and national-level sprinters. I doubt if any of them waste time on “ab” exercises, but I doubt you could find a single one without a washboard stomach.
Beefcake photos from the 50s did have guys who show decent washboards, just not the couple of guys you picked. Do an image search for “50s beefcake photos” and you’ll get a bunch of moderately NSFW pictures of dudes with decent physiques, many who would look the same as the “twinks” in a gay club.
The difference in size and definition between guys who are “in shape” then and now is probably that most guys in the 50s didn’t lift weights. There used to be a popular myth that lifting heavy would make you “muscle-bound” and inflexible, or stunt your growth so that you wouldn’t get as tall as you could, or that you’d damage yourself somehow, or that it didn’t produce real strength. All bullshit, of course, but quite a few people thought it was true. I heard some of those in some form or another up until the late 80s even.
the #1 health benefit I can think of is the following contiuum:
washboard abs -----> chix noticing & giving attention -------> going to bed with more chix, more sex -------> sex recognized to be not only good for you but a good workout as well------> more washboard abs --------> more chix noticing… etc.
A virtuous circle if there ever was one.
I ain’t got washboard, but just a hint of abs showing, and bigger than average pex, which camouflages some of the pooch, so there’s been some success with chix. No doubt were there washboard, there’d be more chix, more incentive to work out & eat better, more chix etc.
This, especially the accurate though not unique example of Crossfit. Unless your generation lacked barbells or other heavy things like rocks, logs, or large animals, there was no reason that the look in your linked photo was not achievable. “Modern gym equipment”, which I take to mean the typical isolation type machines in most gyms, could actually be considered counter productive to developing a strong core and the associated aesthetic because it removes or at least limits the stabilization element from many exercises.
On the diet front, I would argue that past generations were actually at an advantage in food availability if not in knowledge. A world of Twinkies, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, and high fructose corn syrup in every other product on the grocery store shelf is dietarily far inferior to one where naturally raised meat and fresh produce are the norm.
The only thing keeping past generations from washboard abs was the whims of public opinion and pop culture. Moderately well developed abs start to become visible around 10% body fat in younger adult males, which is not particularly low. (http://www.bodyspex.com/asset.aspx?id=11)
Indeed, and the results of such surgery on someone not otherwise fit or thin can be seen here
Looks just like a teenage mutant ninja turtle to me
Unfortunately we now have pro bodybuilders who have a bulging gut and a six-pack. Just search “roid gut” or “HGH gut”. The aesthetic physique has gone out the window and has been replaced by the “Mass Monster.” It’s sick.
Looks like someone wearing a sumo suit.
I’ve said this here before, and got ignored (I’m guessing because the facts disagree with some people’s theories): I’m skinny, I’ve always been skinny, and I come from a long line of skinny guys on both sides of my family.
A few years ago, I went through a period of fairly severe illness and had no appetite at all for many months. Food made me ill. I was already skinny, and I ended up skeletal. My abs, however, did not resemble a washboard. I had no body fat, and I had no washboard.
The people saying that washboard abs are only a result of having low body fat are wrong. You can drop down to starving and literally dying like I was, and without exercise, you will not have washboard abs.
I need to go on the record here and remind anyone with even a remote interest in sports that today’s athletes can do incredible things above and beyond what yesterday’s athletes could do. The physiques on some NFL wide receivers, running backs and defensive backs is far above and beyond those of yesteryear. Guys like Terrell Owens and numerous other hard-core athletes have six-pack abs because they come with ridiculous amounts of conditioning and are part of the cyborg type athletes you get today. It all results in guys with ludicrous amounts of physical ability, which millions enjoy on a regular basis.
So, does it have a purpose? Yes. Is it a narrow and specific purpose (six pack): Yes. But it generally comes from an intense level of training that has a broader physical change. An intensely strong core group of muscles results in these cyborg-type athletes that do amazing things.
Jeez, dude. No pics of starving Somalian orphans has ever come with washboard abs. People are just trying to counter the popular myth that if you just do a bazillion situps each day you’ll have washboard abs. That’s all.
Then why do wrestlers and boxers practically starve themselves to “make weight”?
Which actually answers your question somewhat. There isn’t really a purpose to 6-pack abs. It’s more of a side effect of having really low bodyfat, which often does have a purpose in certain athletics.
Ironically, most people from the Hardy Boys era would probably be considered “scrawny” by the standards of our modern meathead culture.
Our culture is also a lot more superfically image conscious than the OPs generation. Sort of. I feel like most Americans are mostly fat, dumb, sedentary slobs who focus on a small select group of extremely good looking people making spectacles of themselves.
So you were sick for months and ate almost no food. So I doubt you were very active in that time. Muscles atrophy would mean your abs would not have definition, so when you drop your body fat, you have nothing to show.
Of course you need to work out on some level to have “wash board” abs. But it is your diet that will decide if you can see them. I have never seen anyone who said otherwise and I read a few fitness boards.
Abs (and obliques) are used in a huge variety of movements. Boxers and fighters develop abs because they are used to provide power to punches, and the hard muscle also protects the internal organs when taking a hit. It’s pretty amazing how much protection abs provide when taking a punch.
I was reminded how obliques are used for everyday activities when I was in a car wreck, and got hit under the ribs by the door handle. I was seriously bruised, and for a week after that, it was agony to do things like swing my feet out of bed, or lift my leg to step over something.
Most six-packs you see are the result of the conscious effort to develop them, but many athletes will have pretty well-defined abs without explicitly training them, or only training as a part of an overall routine.
I have to disagree with the OP’s premise. Yes, modern gym equipment makes targetted ab work a lot easier, but it’s not so much ab work that makes washboard abs as low subcutaneous fat on the abs. I’ve seen plenty of guys who do very little for abs but naturally have a 6% body fat and have a six-pack and bigger guys who do tons of work and are lucky to have even a faint outline.
I think there’s two factors between then and now. Certainly part of it is advances in diet and exercise. It’s just easier to build muscle and lose fat today than it used to be. I think the other and probably more significant aspect is a change in culture. If you look as recently as 25-30 years ago, bodybuilders still had good proportions, Hollywood still had somewhat normal looking people, but today all of these things have gotten skewed to the extremes where a woman who would have been attractive and slim is considered fat by their standards and bodybuilders who aren’t pushing 300 lbs just can’t compete. Our culture has higher expectations to meet certain physical characteristics and people work harder to get them.
But modern gym equipment is a minor factor. Personally, I work out a lot, but the large majority of my exercises are pretty old school, probably 90-95% of it is free weight and cable work, and of the few machines I do use, they’re usually supplemental. I know plenty of guys who also have good physiques who focus a lot on body weight and functional movements. The main advantage of gym technology isn’t so much in greater efficiency in building muscle but in making the exercises safer and easier.
Making weight doesn’t have much to do with bodyfat percentage. If they are losing bodyfat to “make weight” it just means they are fat in their walkaround weight. They are weighed the day before the fight and come fight time they are often 10-20lbs heavier because they have rehydrated.
I had 6-pack abs until I busted out a hernia and now I’ve got a 7-pack!
last century/era before this one with bunches of washboard abs: Greek and Roman period.
What happened between now and then? Malnourishment of the Medieval Ages? No fitness agendas?
btw, love this model:
http://bit.ly/zwMP3K
He doesn’t have abs, but still in fine shape/sculpted.
The guy does have abs, it’s just an overexposed photo from an oblique angle, and he’s not flexing them. Head-on, in better lighting, you’d see them, though they’d doubtlessly be less defined than those of a pro bodybuilder.
