It's Day 12 of Kenzai Shift, just three days to go! Keep working on your basic best practices, eating food in correct portions, avoiding the worst of the worst foods (processed, liquid, and sugar bombs) and getting some light cardio in every day, even if it's just a walk around the block. The payoff is huge compared to the relatively low effort to get these few things right.

Yesterday we did a deep dive into how your genetics will be the ultimate decider in how you look when you're in great shape. But over the years we've heard people ask about one particular body part more than any other — abs. There's so much confusion about abs that they're getting their own myth busting session today!

This leads us to today's misconception:

ABS ARE A SIGN OF PEAK FITNESS.

ABS ARE THE SIGN OF A FITNESS HOBBYIST AND HAVE LITTLE TO DO WITH YOUR ACTUAL HEALTH

Let's start by talking what the abs are, and what they aren't.

The abs are NOT six small muscles on the front of your lower torso. "They" are in fact a single sheet of muscle, the abdominus rectus, which originates from under the lowest point of your front ribcage and swoops down to connect to your pelvis.

The abdominus rectus is what allows you to curl your body over, such as when you tie your shoe, or to tilt your pelvis and lift your legs when lying down, as you would do to get out of bed. This muscle has a lot of surface area, but is quite thin compared to beefier muscles that you might find on your legs, back, and arms.

To help give it some structure, the human body evolved a superstructure for the abs. This is the thick white, tendinous fiber you see running vertically down the middle, and the three smaller horizontal subdivisions.

This tendinous fiber creates a quilting effect, and is what's behind the illusion of 6 separate muscles on the lower torso (with another 2 separations usually covered by body fat).

The human body has hundreds of muscles, many more interesting and important than the abs. Why did this particular muscle become such a hallmark of a fit body? The answer is that having well defined abs takes a lot of time and dedication and is therefore rare, and what is rare inevitably becomes valuable.

Titian's Venus and the Lute Player (1570). A few hundred years ago in Europe a plump, pale body was the rarity, and therefore the highest aesthetic goal. These days, it's all too easy to carry extra body fat, and the look has fallen out of fashion in favor of lean, muscular physiques.

So, how does a person get a well defined abdominus rectus, and why is it so hard?

First and foremost, you have to get your body fat down. Not just to healthy levels, but to extremely lean levels. Remember the subcutaneous wetsuit of fat we discussed last week? For a male in good general health that subcutaneous fat percentage will be around 15%.  For women it will be around 22%. But to see the quilting effect of the abs a male needs to be at least 12% body fat, and a female 15%. The lower the body fat, the more of the abs will be exposed.

Getting to a low body fat like that doesn't happen by accident, it requires consistent training and a youthful.  As we age fat storage migrates away from the extremities and towards the middle, which is why it's extremely unusual to see someone in their 60s with a six pack.

At the same time that body fat is getting painfully low, the person needs to be very fit and holding on to high muscle mass. This means that even while the fat is dropping from the middle, the thin muscle tissue of the abs is maintaining tone, pushing outwards to form three dimensional quilted abdominal rectangles.

Even if a person gets this all this right, they'll bump into their genetics. Some people's abdominus rectus has fairly shallow attachment points close the surface. For them, it won't be nearly as hard to get visible abs. Others have attachment points deeper in the pelvis, which slants the abs deeper under the skin and making visible abs much more challenging if not impossible.

To sum up, yo get highly defined abs you need to:

• Be relatively young.
• Be at a very low body fat (for most people, much lower than the body prefers).
• Have high muscle mass from either consistent training or a very active lifestyle (like an athlete).
• Be genetically disposed towards having more visible abs due to more superficial attachment points on the pelvis.

Note that none of this is related to your actual health, wellness, physical performance or functional fitness level. In fact, being at such a low body weight that abs are visible often comes with reduced strength and less stamina as the body is in a depleted state.

The abs are a lot like a peacock's feathers. They're an impressive sight, but come at a high cost for the creature that sports them. For a peacock, its heavy feathers make it unable to fly more than a short distance. For a human, great involving food and drink.

The challenge for us in Western cultures where the abs are idolized is that we never see the time, rigidity, and downside effects that getting abs comes with. Actors and models flex their abs as if it were the most normal thing in the world to have them, but know that they have their film shoots circled on the calendar for months and put all their effort into training for those few hours when the camera is rolling. As soon as the shoot is done the hungry, dehydrated actor often stumbles to the catering cart and eats like crazy.

This is why when an actor or model is caught on the beach between shoots their abs are often nowhere to be seen. They look just like everyone else. In fact, in recent years actors have started negotiating themselves out of topless scenes because the amount of effort and life disruption getting "film ready" takes.

The one category of people who consistently have good looking abs all year long are serious athletes, who are putting in 6 to 8 hours a day in strenuous exercise, creating enormous calorie deficits that allow for low body fat and high muscle mass. If you're ready to make exercise your full time job, you'll get abs soon enough. But for most people, there are more interesting and important things to do with their time.

Gardening is a nice hobby.

Reading is a nice hobby.

Playing an instrument is a nice hobby.

Getting a six-pack physique is a nice hobby. It has no more merit than the other activities, and isn't a goal you need to have if you want to be healthy. When you see someone with good looking abs, it's completely fine to appreciate the aesthetic and work that went into it. But you should remember you're not looking at someone who just eats well and takes walks.

You're looking at a fitness enthusiast who pours their time and energy into this hobby. Think of getting abs as the same type of pursuit as learning Italian or how to play the harp. It's a neat thing to do, takes a lot of time, but is fairly useless in everyday life. When your friend shows off their Italian at a restaurant you might feel admiration and a pang of jealousy, but you know that you also have interesting talents and are choosing to invest your time in other hobbies.

That's how you should view abs. Don't get locked into tunnel vision trying to get abs. To be healthy your priority should be getting to a stable body fat first. Only then should you take on abs as a side project, and only if you're truly interested in it as you would be any other hobby.