Thursday, August 22, 2013

Abdominal Training

Truth: Exposing your abs is a matter of getting very low body fat levels.  The lower your body fat level, the 'thinner' your skin will be and the more your abdominal musculature will show through.

Truth: Without the proper diet ('kitchen'), the ab exercises by themselves are useless because well-developed abs can remain covered up with a layer of fat and it's possible to out-eat any amount of exercise.

When it comes to losing belly fat, there isn't anything much better at torching the stubborn fat around your waistline as quickly and efficiently as interval training, also known as HIIT (high intensity interval training): WORK period, REST period.  In other words: out of breath, slow down to catch your breath.


So how do you know if you're WORK intervals are hard enough?
Think of a scale of 1-10

1  =you're basically just standing there.
10=you're legs are going to fall off and you may vomit.

You want to be at about 8.5 on that scale. You're REST intervals would be at around 3 on that scale, giving you a nice recovery period to let your heart rate come down before crushing another WORK interval.

Example list of exercises that are extremely effective as a HIIT Circuit Training; they all require full-body movements and it will not take you long to reach your 8.5 on the scale:
  • Burpees
  • Mountain climbers, X-climbers
  • Lunges, Prisoner Lunges, Lateral Lunges, Front Lunges
  • Pushups (any kind)
  • Squat 'Hops', Plyo Box Jumps
  • Jump Split Squat