Summer time makes us more aware of our abdominals than anything else. After all, there’s nothing like bathing suit season to make you aware of the softness around your belly or the extra flab. You might be thinking since it’s mid-summer, it’s too late to get started. Let’s change that way of thinking, there’s never a too late to get started and here are 4 tips that you can use right now to help improve your abs and maybe even reduce some flab or at least firm it up so you feel better.
Eat Smart
Nutrition is the key to great fitness. A lot of people think you need to slash all your calories or all your carbs, what you need to do is eat right and control your blood sugar levels. This can mean eating frequent, small meals. You are not looking to eat some giant meal with ten courses, instead, frequent small meals will help curb hunger and prevent binge eating. Try drinking a glass of water with every meal, this can help reduce your chances for eating because you are thirsty.
Cardio Exercise is a Must
You might think cardio is just going to tighten up your legs, but cardio workouts tone the overall body shape and reduce excess fat deposits. Cardio will help you trim inches. A regular cardio program, performed five times a week sans any other type of workout (say 60 minutes 4 to 5 times per week) helped trim more than six inches from my overall frame and all I was doing was walking.
Ab Specific Exercises
Working out is another way to tighten up your abdominals. You can do rows, lateral pull downs, free weight squats, sit ups and crunches are a great way to build the muscles up in your abdominals and back. Muscles burn more calories than fat, so when you are toning up your muscles in these areas, you will help trim back the excess fat.
Weight Train no more than 3 x Week
Weight training is a great way to build and tone muscles, but while you can do all the cardio you want, keep your weight training down to three times a week. You want to tone, not to muscle out or overtrain. A good schedule for you to follow might be Cardio workouts M, T, W, T, and F with Weight Training on M, W and F.
You don’t need to spend more than 30 minutes on your weight training, but try to shoot for 60 minutes on your cardio. You can combine your cardio with your weight training on those days by doing interval training that keeps your heart rate elevated by doing 20 sit ups followed by 2 minutes intense on a treadmill, then 20 squats and doing a minute’s worth of jumping jacks, etc.
What do you think of this abs plan for a mid-summer pick me up?
Related Articles:
How to Decide on a Fitness Plan