Tuesday, December 29, 2009

How to Lose Your Love Handles With Abs Exercises



People want to look fit, but hey know that the main obstacle in their way is the belly fat, and to be more specific they know that it's about losing the "love handles". These are deposits of body fat located at both sides of our torso, covering the oblique muscles. So, it is important to know also how to lose your love handles.

The traditional exercises will not work for this purpose because exercises like crunches and sit-ups don't work on your obliques; rather they center their efforts on the rectus abdominus. However there are good exercises that rigger the obliques and let you lose the love handles along with a healthy diet. Let's have a look at them:

Side Bend

These is my personal favorite exercise to lose the love handles.

1. Stand upright with feet shoulder width apart and your knees slightly bent.

2. Lower you torso to one side and then to the other slowly and with control. Be sure to lean side to side only.

Torso Twist

Do this after the side bends.

1. Stand like in the side bend.

2. Twist the body to the right, then to the left. NOTE: Twist form the torso not from the hips. The twisting must be done with your obliques.

Side Crunch

Time to lie down on the floor! You can use an exercise mat or a towel to soften the surface. 1. Lie down on the right side.

2. Bring your right arm across your waist and let it rest

3. Touch your ear with the fingertips of your left hand, so that your left elbows winds up pointing straight upward.

4. Lift your shoulders of the floor 30cm contracting your obliques.

5. Repeat for a full set and change sides.

Seated Knee Drop

1. Rest on your hipbones on the floor. You can stabilize yourself with your hands behind you.

2. Bend your knees and put your feet flat on the surface with your ankles together.

3. Lower your knees to the right. Your feet should roll to, but still rest on the floor.

4. Continue until your knees are 6 inches above the floor, hold for a second and repeat on the other side.

5. The key here is control of movement, instead of using momentum.

Now you know how to lose your love handles. These are pretty simple exercises that require nothing but time to do. Stick to them every day or leaving a day off and you'll start seeing results in no time!

Learn how to get the stomach you want with How to Lose Your Love Handles.

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Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Get Great 6-Pack Abs Without Weightlifting



Do you want a great set of 6-pack abs without lifting any weights? Have you worked hard to develop great abs but were unable to lose to the fat layer that covers your abs? Do you want to lower your body fat count effectively?

If your answer to the above 3 questions is yes, then the health and fitness plan described below will help you achieve great looking 6-pack abs;

This plan consists of an Eating plan, Interval exercise and effective targeted exercise.

Eating Plan

It may be difficult to believe, but you have to eat to lose weight. Crash diets are dangerous and can have the opposite effect.

If you dramatically reduce the amount of food you eat, your body adapts by storing whatever is gets instead of burning fuel for energy. This causes you in increase weight and body fat count, which is the last thing you want.

It is best to eat at least 6 meals per day. Each portion should be no larger than your fist. Eating in this manner assures your body that there is a regular supply of food. The body then burns the fuel more quickly and efficiently which has the effect of lowering the body fat count.

Interval exercise

This exercise dramatically increases the metabolism of your body, which further increases the rate at which your body burns fuel and excess fat.

Sprint as fast as you can for 20 to 30 seconds then walk at a brisk pace for 3 minutes. Repeat this 5 times a session. This exercise should be done 3 times a week.

Targeted exercise

The following exercises are excellent for developing great 6-pack abs.

Leg lifts

Lay on your back keeping your hands behind your head. Using your abdominal muscles, raise your legs to a height angle of approx 60 degrees from the floor and keep them there for 10 seconds. Then let them down slowly without letting your feet touch the floor!

Start with 3 times 10 - 15 reps and work yourself up to 3 times 30 reps.

Push-ups and Chin-ups

Yes, these will help you develop great abs. Your abdominal muscles always support your stomach and back when doing different exercises.

When doing left lifts, doing push-up and chin-ups, it is very important that these exercises are done every second day. Your muscles need resting time to recover and build

Please understand that a well designed exercise program is the best way to develop six pack abs without the risk of injury. This also ensures that you get maximum results in the shortest time frame possible.

If you would like to know which abs exercise program we highly recommend, click here

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Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Abs Diet – What Are The Dos and Don’ts with Eating to Get Abdominals Fast?



If you want to find your abs, you have to burn the fat. Eating right is critical, and by following the nutrition principles of the Abs Diet and centering your meals on metabolism boosting foods. You'll lose fat pretty effortlessly. But to maximize your weight loss and turn your fat into muscle, you need an exercise plan. Exercise will not only make you healthier; it'll make you lose weight faster. It'll make you stronger. Most important, it'll make your body turn fat into muscle -- by converting energy that's stored in fat into energy that feeds muscle.

Most diet plans you’ll find, are dull with complicated, hard-to-follow rules and foods that taste like nothing more than cardboard. If they don’t taste like cardboard they don’t seem to fill us up and give us that overwhelming feeling of oh that was good. Please have a look at a couple recipes I have provided that I personally used in conjunction with exercise to get my abs.

Here's an example of how you can structure a week of eating. It's not written in as a concrete structured plan, so please mix and match to suit your taste and life style. For more recipes, workouts & mentors be sure to check out http://www.truthaboutabprograms.com.

Breakfast
One tall glass (8 to 12 ounces) Abs Diet Ultimate Power Smoothie; make extra for later

Abs Diet Ultimate Power Smoothie
1 cup 1% milk
2 tablespoons low-fat vanilla yogurt
¾ cup instant oatmeal, nuked in water
2 teaspoons peanut butter
2 teaspoons chocolate whey powder
6 ice cubes, crushed

Makes 2 8-ounce servings

Per serving: 220 calories, 12 g protein, 29 g carbohydrates, 4 g fat (1.5 g saturated), 3 g fiber, 118 mg sodium

Snack #1
2 teaspoons peanut butter, raw vegetables (as much as you want)

Lunch
Turkey or roast beef sandwich on whole-grain bread, 1 cup 1% or fat-free milk, 1 apple

Snack #2
1 ounce almonds, 1½ cups berries

Dinner
Mas Macho Meatballs
1 pound extra-lean ground beef
½ cup crushed saltine crackers
1 large onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed or whey powder
1 jar (16 ounces) tomato sauce
4 whole-wheat hoagie rolls
½ cup reduced-fat mozzarella cheese, shredded
1. Mix the beef, crackers, onion, garlic, and flaxseed or whey powder into golf ball-size meatballs.

2. In a nonstick skillet over medium heat, cook the meatballs until browned all the way around. Drain the fat from the skillet, and add the tomato sauce.

3. While the mixture is warming, use a fork to scoop out some of the bread in the rolls to form shallow trenches. Spoon the meatballs and sauce into each trench, and sprinkle with shredded mozzarella, and top with the top half of the roll.

Makes 4 servings

Per serving: 569 calories, 38 g protein, 65 g carbohydrates, 19 g fat (6 g saturated), 10 g fiber, 1,341 mg sodium

Snack #3
8 to 12 ounces Abs Diet Smoothie

Rock hard abs are the result of diet, discipline, correct workouts and using the right tools, learn about Abdominal Exercise and correct eating plans at http://www.truthaboutabprograms.com

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Friday, January 25, 2008

How To Get Eye Candy Abs



If you could sculpt one body part to perfection for next summer, what would it be? Let me guess - six pack abs! It's what we all want , eye candy abs. I don't know anybody who does not want to shrink their waistline, lose body fat, eliminate lowe'r back pain and develop a jaw-dropping set of rock-hard six-pack abs. Building eye-popping abdominals is not the hardest thing to achieve in the world but it's definitely not the easiest either.

Before you can start learning how to get eye candy abs and discover the truth about what it really takes to build a beach-worthy abdominal section, you must first expose the lies, myths and rumors. Before we talk about how to get six-pack abs, the right way, we must re-program your hard drive and empty the trash can of garbage you have been fed.

Because of all this hyped-up and misguided information - even among so-called 'fitness experts' - you should be skeptical of all abdominal training equimpment and programs. Let's first eliminate the top four ways not to get a six-pack:

Learning how to get a six-pack does not require expensive workout equipment promoted through obnoxious infomercials. You can't flick on the TV anymore without seeing two new abdominal exercise machines being promoted at once. There are so many of them that if you get suckered into these 'ab workout' gimmicks, you will be broke quicker than Ben Johnson sprints the 100 meter dash! And get this: Of the $520 million dollars a year spent on exercise equipment, abdominal machines get a $208 million dollar piece of the pie!

Learning how to get a six-pack does not require thousands or even hundreds of crunches a day. So much for the Brittany Spears ab workout! Crunches are decent but totally overused and associated with more being better. Crunches are a very general exercise, and general exercises get general results. Excessive floor crunches shorten the abdominal wall, pull your head forward and emphasize poor posture. They also involve a very low level of stimulation which neglects adequate muscle-fiber recruitment.

Learning how to get a six-pack does not involve starvation diets. Starvation diets starve the muscle when you should be feeding the muscle instead. Guess what happens when you starve your body? Your metabolism shuts down out of survival and causes your body to store fat. Your body must get energy from somewhere, so guess what gets sacrificed? That's right, your precious muscle which is, in fact, responsible for maintaining a high metabolism. Starve your muscle - great logic!

Learning how to get a six-pack does not require fat-burning pills. What did the last weight loss pill you bought do for you? The same thing the next one is going to do - nothing! Except give you a thinner wallet but not a thinner waist line. The entire concept of taking pills to 'burn fat' is built on a sandy foundation and misleading because diet pills only treat the symptoms and not the root cause. Without focusing on the root problems of a flabby mid-section, like poor nutrition, a crazy lifestyle and improper training, you will just end up where you started - farther away from having a six-pack for summer instead of closer.

Just Because You're Skinny Does Not Mean You Will Have A Six-Pack

The volume of interest I receive from skinny guys who wish to build their mid-sections is more than enough evidence to disprove the false reality of "I should be able to 'see' my abs if I have low body fat." I'm sure you know of a friend who is completely scrawny, yet, without a shirt on he, has zero abdominal definition! To me that would be salt on an open wound.

Abdominals Are A Muscle, Too!

You want your arms to be bigger, your shoulders to be broader and your chest to be fuller, correct? And what is the solution to making these muscle groups increase in size? High intensity weight training, overload, consistency and a healthy surplus of calories. Starting to sound familiar?

The same goes for your abdominals. Your abdominals are a muscle group that requires the same formula and attention and are not any different from other muscle groups. For some reason many consider abdominals to be a 'special' body part that requires a different set of rules and a completely different formula for training. Abdominals were not given a 'secret code' to crack. To get thick, dense abs - the ones that 'pop' out - you must train them with intensity and overload. Here are some practical tips you can apply to your program so that you can be the 'man' or 'gal' at your gym with a ripped and muscular six-pack. Then I will provide a sample program!

Prioritize By Sequence

If your abs are your worse body part, then why do you keep training them last, at the end of your workout? Which muscles group will receive the highest priority when you train? The ones done at the start of your workout or the ones done at the end of the workout? Of course, the exercises done at the start of the workout while you have the most energy and focus. If abdominals are the muscle group you wish to prioritize, then don't be afraid to disagree with the 'experts' who say "Never train your abdominals first because you'll weaken your core muscles for the rest of your workout...". I completely disagree with this and often reply, "Show me the evidence." The typical response is "Nobody does abdominals first...". That is pure BS. This just supports the notion that many people who work out don't ever question what they hear or do. They want to be spoon-fed answers and follow the trends of others without thinking for themselves. I ALWAYS train abdominals first in a workout if they need the highest attention.

Prioritize By Frequency

What's going to receive better results? A muscle group that is trained one time a week or two times a week (assuming you recovered prior to the second workout commencing)? Of course, the muscle that is trained 2x a week. The more stimulus on a muscle, the more growth. That is why professional athletes are professional athletes. They have conditioned their bodies to such a high amount of stress that they are able to train more frequently.

How often you train your abdominals is based on the inverse relationship of intensity and volume. The harder you train your abs, the more rest they need. The less intense you train your abs, the more frequently you can train them! If your goal is rehab or injury prevention, then you will be able to train them often with more frequent and lower loads. If your goal is to make your abs more muscular and dense, then a higher load and less frequency would be ideal. If your goal is maintenance, then a medium load and frequency would be ideal. Refer to this table:

Purpose

Frequency

Intensity

Volume

Reps

If building a sexy six-pack is on your 'to do' list for 2007, then start training abdominals 2-4x a week. I will teach you in a moment how to split your abdominals up into two different days based on movement.

Your Genetics and Abdominals

Right now some of you can see a perfectly set of staggered abs that are wide and thick and separated by a line down the middle. Some of you have the classic four-pack which is four big abs with a smooth lower section. Some of you have tiny cubicle boxes sitting high on your abdominal wall. Some of you have the picture perfect eight-pack that makes people's jaws drop.

Like every muscle group, all you can do is train them as heavy and hard as possible and hope your genetics take care of the rest. You can't change the shape or alignment or separation of your abs. You can't move them around and place them where you want them. Your genetics will affect to which degree they "pop" out and to which degree they stay smoother or flatter.

The good news is that abdominals are abdominals and when your body fat levels are around 5-7% you are guaranteed to impress people, including yourself, with a set of hot-looking abs. Even though genetics play a huge role in how they look, it's important to know how to train them to make them look their best.

Divide Your Abdominals into Two Separate Workouts for Best Results

To train your abdominals safely and effectively you must know the basic movement patterns of your abs and train them within all sub-categories:

• Truck Flexion (upper abs)
• Hip Flexion (lower abs)
• Rotation (obliques)
• Lateral Flexion (obliques)

The majority of books and articles you have read revolve the bulk of the ab exercises around the trunk flexion that is better known as 'upper ab' exercises. A full sit up is a perfect example of this.

Bill Starr in his 1976 classic 'The Strongest Shall Survive' wrote that the abdominals "...can be strengthened in a wide variety of ways. Sit-ups of all types, leg raises, truck rotation movements all involve the abdominal muscles to a different degree..."

Even though you are training each movement twice per week, you will perform different exercises for each workout.

Perform this workout at least two times a week separated by at least 48 hours rest. You should experience a deep muscle soreness after each one of these workouts. Focus on using a load that causes failure within 8-12 reps and then move to the next exercise. This is a non-stop circuit. Rest 1-2 minutes and repeat until you reach 4 sets total.

Exercise Sets Reps Tempo Rest
Hanging Leg Raises 1-4 8-12 311 -
Rope Crunch 1-4 8-12 311 -
Reverse Crunch 1-4 8-12 311 -
Weighted Ball Crunch 1-4 8-12 311 1-2 minutes

Trunk Rotation and Lateral Flexion

Perform this workout at least two times a week separated by at least 48 hours rest. You should experience a deep muscle soreness after each one of these workouts. Focus on using a load that causes failure within 8-12 reps and then move to the next exercise. This is a non-stop circuit. Rest 1-2 minutes and repeat until you reach 4 sets total.

Exercise Sets Reps Tempo Rest
Side Bends Dumbells Overhead 1-4 8-12 311 -
Oblique Crunch 1-4 8-12 311 -
Side Bends Dumbells Overhead 1-4 8-12 311 -
Lateral Raises on Back
Extension Machine

1-4 8-12 311 1-2 minutes

Conclusion

As said earlier, buiding eye candy abs is not the easiest task in the work but nor is it the hardest. The above abdominal exercises will help you build a deeply separated and evenly placed set of abs in little time. The truth is that if you can't see your abs, then the best exercise for your abs will be better diet.

Nic Roberts
Read More:
http://www.learnhowtobuildmuscle.com

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