How To Get Great Abs!

How to lose a flabby tummy

Excess calories are stored as fat around the vital organs - the liver and kidneys - and around the ovaries and womb for women. The body sees fat stored in this area as playing a vital role and therefore is reluctant to use it for energy when a calorie deficit (through nutrition and exercise) is created. This is why body fat reduction is often noticed on other areas of the body first and why abdominal fat seems reluctant to go!

Diet

Body fat reduction has to be a consistent, long-term process. Your diet definitely has an impact - in fact it is the main cause of storage in the first place! High fat foods and alcohol increase the likelihood of an unchanging (and even growing!) midriff.

How to shift it

Eat less and move more and the body becomes a more streamlined machine! Use a variety of exercise, weight training and aerobic training to burn calories and maybe get those 6 pack abs you keep hearing about. Include some core/abdominal work as you will need to activate and tone the deep and superficial stomach muscles as you lose body fat from that area.

Circuits

Try a whole body circuit approach where you perform your exercises one after the other with minimal rest. This means you activate muscle tissue and achieve the effects of cardiovascular training because the circuit format keeps your heart rate at an effective level. You could even do a bodyweight circuit of your own at home. For example:

• Press ups (knees or full) - 15 reps
• Lunges - 10 reps each leg
• Sit ups - 20 super-slow reps
• Single leg squats - 10 reps each leg
• Abdominal plank - 30-40 second hold

Swiss balls

'Swiss balls' as they are commonly known are the foundation of core stability training. Research shows that using a Swiss ball dramatically increases the activation of your core (deep abdominal) muscles, leading to greater calorie burning and better results in terms of tone and strength.

By putting the body in an 'unstable' position (i.e. on a Swiss ball) it has to work harder to control movement, forcing the body to recruit more muscles and burn more calories.

Sit -ups

The quality of the 'sit-ups' is extremely important! The strictest form with minimal cheating will optimise the calories burned.

People go through the motion of counting reps but don't really think about the quality of their technique or what area they are trying to target. Whenever you do abdominals try to only think about the area you want to feel working while doing your repetitions.