Here's the Situation (2 page)

I like to incorporate situational training when working on my situation. I train my fist-pump muscles using a heavy dumbbell or a cable apparatus. (Pauly D and I are actually deep intoR & D on a Fist-Pump 3000 Trainer.)

Coming to gyms everywhere in 2011

I'll also occasionally pick the biggest gorilla juicehead in the gym (although if he's in the gym with me, it's more accurate to call him the
second-biggest
) and invite him to pummel my midsection with punches in order to maintain my ab strength.

Another day at the office

If you want a ripped-up ab situation, you can't let that six-pack hide under a layer of fat. You've got to burn that off by hitting the treadmill for at least a half hour every day. Hours and hours on the treadmill might sound tough, but it's all part of being in the game. As with everything in life, you get out what you put in. For the best results, switch it up by also using the elliptical trainer and Stairmaster. You want to confuse your muscles by hitting them in different ways. Although my muscles are by this point nearly impossible to confuse; my abs are so intelligent they actually wrote this entire chapter.

You might ask yourself how a world-famous celebrity like me finds time to get in his cardio. Rest assured that while you're sitting on your couch watching reruns of
Jersey Shore
, in a hotel gym somewhere The Sitch is paying his bills on the treadmill.

My preference is hard rock and hard rap when I'm pushing my body hard at the gym. That style of music gets me amped up and helps me sustain workouts for as long as I need (I suggest my debut single “The Situation” for your listening pleasure, though that may be too hard-core for beginners). And, yeah, sometimes I'll get so fired up listening to tunes that I'll throw a couple fist-pumps into my treadmill routine. That's called cross-training, bro.

If you want to look like The Situation, which is going to be pretty tough, you're going to have to get that protein in your diet. That means protein shakes and chicken cutlets all day every day. More than that, you have to eat clean. You can crush chicken Parm, but don't eat the spaghetti on the side. Pasta is awesome, but don't let carbs be the difference between a six-pack and a sick-pack.

Use caution! For your safety, I strongly recommend that individuals refrain from starting an intensive workout routine until they are least six to eight weeks of age. Of course, not everyone has the genetic benefit of superior muscularity and skeletal girth, so please, consult your pediatrician.

Your abs are everything, dawg. And once you develop them, you gotta treat them right. Not taking care of your six-pack is like saving up for ten years to buy an Escalade, then not pimping it out with a set of dubs, a killer sound system, and a GTL 4 EVA vanity license plate. It just don't make no sense.

Proper form will achieve maximum benefit. In the gym and the bedroom. Yo!

You can't cover that chiseled pack with fur, bro. Let your boys breathe.

Rock-hard or not, milky white abs make chicks want to puke.

Slicked-up abdominals encourage the ladies to slip and slide.

It's a little-known fact that I donate all my gym sweat. Several eco-forward companies are trying to develop it as a sustainable fuel source for green energy. In certain circles, it sells for a princely sum per ounce as a premium bronzer (all proceeds going to charity, of course). And in the Far East—I mean, even farther east than East Orange, New Jersey—it is revered as a powerful aphrodisiac when applied topically or ingested orally (the latter being not for the faint of heart). Read more about my charitable contributions in Chapter Eleven: Giving Back.

W
hat's the sense of molding your body into a rock-hard paragon of fitness if you're not going to get your skin did right? You'd have to be crazy to hit the beach with a pasty white complexion. To have no color is to not be alive. But the right tone—the one that brings out the color in your eyes and the definition in your abs—is different for everyone. Pauly D hits the tanning bed every day and has a deep golden hue that sets off his tattoos and dark features. But I've found that I look best when I get my color touched up twice a week. As a rule of thumb, think about the colors of the Italian flag. If you're red, you've tanned too much. If you're white, you haven't tanned enough. And if you're green, well, then you drank too many Jägerbombs the night before.

When it comes to tanning, you've got options:

For generations humans have relied upon the sun to obtain that healthy glow. But the sun is an angry star—the angriest in our galaxy—and if not respected it can derail your game real quick. If you fall asleep on the beach at Seaside dreaming about creeping on chicks at Karma later that night, you'll wake up looking like a lobster. Then when you do hit the club you won't be creeping, you'll be crabbing. And that's just creepy.

Much more reliable than the sun is the tanning bed. I hit up the tanning salon right after I work out. It's part of my routine. I pop in the bed, set the timer, and relax. Strictly set it and forget it. When looking for a tanning salon, you want a place that's classy and up-scale, with affordable pricing and staff packed with smoking-hot chicks. Note that many guys go freeballing in the bed, but I retain my Calvins. Because the last thing I want to deal with later on that night is a sunburnt sub-Sitch.