The stomach area is usually the hardest, and last place you will lose fat when exercising and dieting. It’s stubborn, yet there is no magic cure to targeting fat loss from this area. However, when you combine the following exercises, with a low fat diet, you will see results within 4 weeks.
Unfortunately, you cannot just lose fat from your stomach. You need to follow the general fat loss principles and you will lose fat from your whole body, including your stomach. Fat is burnt when performing cardio, or aerobic exercises. This type of exercise is long duration, moderate intensity exercise. In other words, you elevate you heart rate to about 70% of your max heart rate, and sustain this for a minimum of 20 minutes.
When performing cardio exercise, your body uses fat stores as energy during the exercise. It uses fat stores from all over your body, as I mentioned earlier, there is no way of targeting burning fat just off your stomach. Research as shown for optimal weight loss, it is recommended that you perform 30 minutes of aerobic exercise, at an intensity of 70% of your max heart rate, at least 4 days a week.
Once you start burning fat form the area, by exercising and eating a low fat diet, its now time to tone an tighten the abdominal muscles. There is no point starting these exercise earlier as they will never be seen if there is a layer of fat covering them! The three best ab toning exercises are crunches, oblique crunches and the plank.
Crunches are basically 1/2 of a traditional sit-up. Start by lying on your back with knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Make sure your feet stay on the floor throughout the exercise, if they lift off you are using you hip flexor muscles more than your abs. Place your hands behind you neck. Never pull you neck with your hands, they are just there for support. Breathe in as you lift you head and shoulders off the floor towards your knees, then breathe out as you return to the starting position. Perform 3 sets of as many as you can!
Oblique crunches are a variation of the above exercise. As you lift you head and shoulders off the floor, twist your body as if trying to get your right shoulder to your left knee. This exercise targets the oblique muscles more than the rectus abdominus (six pack) muscles at the front of your stomach.
The final exercise is the plank. It is important you don’t hold your breathe when doing this exercise. You start by lying on your stomach. raise your body off the floor so your body-weight is supported on your elbows and feet. Try and hold this position for as long as possible. If you feel any back pain stop the exercise immediately.
In summary, the first step in losing stomach fat is starting a low fat diet and an aerobic exercise program. When you start losing fat, ad din resistance exercises and you will tone and strengthen the area, creating asix pack in no time!
Source: Susan Johnson www.fitbell.com
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