“How do I get rid of this?”
“What exercises will lose my tummy?”
The age old questions asked a million times
The basic facts are this – no ab exercise on its own will make you “lose your tummy”
No electrical gadget with batteries, ab machine you lie into or potion taken internally will make you lose your tummy and keep it gone.
If you have body fat, you will still have a tummy!
Strengthening the underlying muscle will strengthen your core, improve your posture and pull everything have on the outside IN and visually improve you to some degree– BUT you cannot have GREAT abs until you cut the body fat sitting ON TOP of the muscle.
Unfortunately, you cannot spot reduce – lose it from just HERE… and sadly you will always lose it off your earlobes or your toes before you shift it off the bit you want it to go from, it has to go from everywhere!
REALITY CHECK. If spot reduction was possible liposuction would be out of business and I’d make a fortune!
Take into consideration if you have had babies, you might always have a little loose skin there, even if you got the body fat right down and trained that muscle well!
Own it because you earned it, it is nothing to be ashamed of. The trick is to work the machine you were born with and then learn to love the skin you are in! see here how I went through that twice so understand!
Nil desperandum – anything is still possible but it is necessary to take the right path for you .
3 MAGIC THINGS will get you there – no smoke or mirrors – just hard work!
DIET – Strength work – and HIIT
YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT.
Everything you put in your body will show on the outside, so think quality food and look at your quantities – portion sizes. Wrong choices here can be your own worst enemy and will retain that last pesky layer of squishy that bulges in the wrong places and hangs out like an inconsiderate cow pat when you are not looking.
Simple Fact – It is not possible to train your way out of a poor diet.
In the same way you would not put poor quality fuel in your car tank, its time to start putting quality fuel into YOUR tank.
HIIT – Hi Intensity Interval Training
This challenges the aerobic system and the muscles used to perform the work to increase your aerobic threshold and burn off lots of fuel and stored fat.
HIIT by definition is short duration bursts of “perceived” high end aerobic work. It’s a short session, it is necessary to warm up and cool down – loads done in a short time which is handy! This will be burning off the spare inches for hours after exercise in ways that long slow sessions do not.
However YOUR HIIT effort is not the same as the next person’s HIIT intensity effort. You should work to your personal high level for short and, if your fitness allows, more explosive bursts with recovery in between spending no more than 15 mins total at it.
Imagine you are maybe not so fit and training alongside someone who does a lot. Your perception of how hard your maxed out pace is could be a walk in the park to them – so it would not pay to pace yourself at someone else’s level, only work to your own.
So long as it is hard for YOU, then you are achieving the requirement for the burst. The aim is to work hard without hurting yourself, as you get fitter, you can up the intensity. The true beauty of this work is you don’t have to take all day to do it so “I don’t have time” is no longer an excuse.
The other way necessary to get the body fat down is to work those lovely muscles as they burn off fuel in the tank even when you are at rest. This should be a full body workout, using major muscles and engaging your core throughout. They should challenge you, but not beyond your ability to stabilise and at all costs, avoid putting your back at risk.
Its important to work with a trainer who can advise the correct level for you and the correct pathway to progress. This will improve tone, strength, alignment, posture and will improve your overall outline so you look leaner much quicker.
Pilates for posture correction, strength, flexibility and relief from back pain
It is also important to balance your muscle groups or specifically correct any posture issues you may have as you go as posture can really let you down and add years to your frame. There is no point in getting stronger and leaner if you are now walking like Neanderthal man! No two people are the same so one size cannot possibly fit all.
Personally I use Pilates to realign, this gets tougher as you go so you never get to the end of the possibilities and its NOT JUST FOR GIRLS – but it can be kinder to those who are low initially on strength, starting out with a weaker back or need rehab posture related pain. TRX is fantastic combined with it for strength and again hanging from the ceiling in straps – suffer alone or with friends! Great fun and hits parts other beers cannot reach.
TRX suspension training for full body functional strength, balance and all core, all the time!
Stability ball work is a very affordable piece of equipment and much underrated – I love it because there are some exercises that will really challenge you on a TRX but you can’t fall off it as you are in straps. The ball however you can! So it can create greater balance challenges and uses more muscles. All of these forms of exercises are highly functional and effective and can be modified easier, or made as hard as you like to “suck it up!” levels if you are tough enough! but you need to be advised on the right pathway for you – the individual.
Stability Ball work for full body strength and core control through all movements.
See here for some extremely hard-core Hard Core exercises to aspire to. They must only be attempted if the body is strong enough!
If your ultimate goal is to achieve this, remember anything is possible with the right work and right path to get there.
So if you are you one of those people who introduces themselves with a litany of their perceived faults as “Hi I’m M….. I’ve a huge tummy/fat thighs/…”
Its time to start loving the skin you are in, give your body the best fuel and not too much of it, the right exercise and stop being hung up on the saggy 1” at the back of your ass, Some day you will remember to look back and it will be gone!
