Markus Kaulius Signature​​​​​​​ ABS

How Markus Kaulius slowly built one of the best midsections in the business.

- Mike Carlson

Bsmarkus Kaulius walks around looking like this, but it wasn’t always this way. Even though the long and lean Kaulius looks like he came out of the womb with photo shoot–ready abs, his midsection is actually a product of long-term planning and a relentless hunger for improvement.“It is something I had to develop. I was a skinny-fat guy. Even at my skin-niest—124 pounds and 6’4 ½ inches tall—I still had a belly. People would pick on me for having a belly,” he says. “Over the last eight to 10 years I have really focused on the core.”

You accrue a lot of wisdom over 10 years, and here we pick Kaulius’ brain on how he developed and maintains an industry-leading abdomen.

Training: With the help of his trainer, Jean-Jacques Barrett, Kaulius has synthesized the program shown here. He hits his abs five days a week for about 15 minutes at a time. He will choose two exercises (from a long and ever-growing list) and perform them in superset fashion.

“I always train abs first. That is one of the keys to my success. I always start with abs,” he says. “You need that quality, being able to squeeze hard enough. At the end of a workout, you just don’t have the energy left in your body.”

Kaulius’ other training also contributes to his ripped abs. Five days a week he does an hour of fasted cardio first thing in the morning. Additionally, his weight-training workouts with Barrett burn a ton of calories and focus heavily on drop sets, supersets, and overall intensity.

Nutrition: “You can’t out-train a bad diet,” Kaulius says. “‘Diet’ is my answer to 90 percent of the questions I receive. When I get asked, ‘Why am I not getting the results I want?’ ‘Diet.’ Or, ‘How do I lose the last 10 pounds?’ ‘Diet.’”