6 Tips for Flat Abs
Everyone wants a flat stomach – but there’s more to getting tight abs than just doing crunches. Say goodbye to those outrageous ab-toning contraptions and hello to results by applying these 6 tips.
- Keep your stomach tight. One reason we battle the bulge is because we are lazy. We don’t maintain good posture and hold our stomach in like we should. Laziness causes us to lose our resting tone in our abdominal muscles, allowing our gut to stretch out the abdominal wall. We can increase muscle tone simply by keeping our tummy tight and standing up tall.
- Limit overeating. It’s hard to hold our stomach in tight when our belly is full. When we eat large meals our stomach increases in size, pushing out against our abdominal muscles. It’s a lot easier to maintain a smaller, tighter waistline by simply eating smaller portions.
- Retrain your muscles. If you think it’s too late to get a six-pack, think again. Look at all the women who retrain their ab muscles after pregnancy. The same can happen to a beer belly too. Crunches, sit-ups and plank exercises get great results and don’t require a gym membership or equipment.
- Choose cardio that trims your waistline. Trade the bike for exercises that allow the arms to swing and the upper body to rotate. Aerobics classes, like kickboxing, are also excellent as they incorporate a lot of rotation through the mid-section. Concentrate on the ab area while exercising, maintaining good posture and tight abs throughout the exercise.
- Reduce your calories. We can do abdominal exercises until we’re blue in the face, but it won’t do a thing about the fat that’s covering our muscles. The only way to trim off the fat is to take in fewer calories than we burn. Otherwise, we will just have a six-pack under the keg.
- Don’t fall for the gimmicks. If something looks too good to be true, it probably is. Let’s face it; we can’t get a six-pack in six minutes without changing what we do in the other 1,434 minutes that fill our day.
Inspire Someone:
Bonnie Pfiester
Owner of Lift Vero and motivational "pfitness, pfood and pfaith" blogger in Vero Beach, Florida.
4 Comments
missstrangefitness
Reblogged this on missstrangefitness.
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CoreFit Fitness
Excellent tips! Thank you.
Rebecca Johnson
Self has created a strong sexy progressive workout to take you through a variety of exercises that will quickly tone your abs. The stability ball is not essential if you adapt those exercises with an exercise ring or just skip leaning on the ball and do the exercises on the floor. A set of weights and a mat are needed to complete the exercises.
Stretching is interspersed throughout the workout and it gives you a much needed rest between the more intense exercises. The exercises are taught well and then the instructor quickly raises the intensity. The addition of weights and raising the arms takes this workout to an intermediate to advanced routine.
Strong graceful moves make each exercise super efficient. The variety keeps your interest and there are creative adaptations for familiar exercises. Advice is given on how to stabilize your neck and the warm-up helps you to ease into the movements.
Routine:
Warming Up
Stability Ball
Pilates Abs
Yoga Abs
Cooldown
I think they could have made this much more adaptable because they have three women working out and there are few modifications for beginners. This is mostly an intermediate to advanced workout with an emphasis on Yoga stretching and Pilates conditioning.
I felt like I was only working out for about 15 minutes, so this seems to go fast and the creativity kept my attention. The wonderful beach setting is relaxing and healing.
If you are at the advanced level, you may think this is 5 stars for the balance challenges.
~The Rebecca Review