4 Easy Exercises for A Flat Stomach
You get a pretty bad feeling when you find yourself unable to fit into your favorite clothes. Belly fat is not only bad to look at, but can also cause a host of health problems, such as heart disease and diabetes. If you want to shed a bit of weight around your tummy, there are no two ways about it: you have to watch your diet and exercise. Avoid sugar and processed food, focus on eating plenty of fibers, and try out some of the following stomach exercises, making about thirty minutes every day to work out.
Flutter kicks
Place your hands beneath your hips, lifting up your head, raising your legs slightly above the ground, tightening your core. Point your toes forward, first bringing up one foot, then doing the same with the other, repeating so that you form a fluttering motion without letting your feet touch the floor. Do this for about thirty seconds before lowering your legs to the ground.
Planking
Planking is a great exercise for engaging your core, strengthening and toning your abdominal muscles, supporting your spine, improving your posture and building isometric strength.
Go down to the ground in the position you perform pushups in. Place your weight on your forearms, with a bend in your elbows, forming through your body a straight line, down from your ankles, up to your shoulders. Suck in your belly close to your spine. Hold this position for as long as you can and then relax. Don’t worry if in the beginning you find yourself unable to hold the position for very long, such as around 10 seconds. The time will increase with persistence and practice. Perform 5-6 repetitions.
Crunches
Crunches burn fat pretty fast. Lie down on your back, knees bent, feet planted firmly on the ground. You could also keep your legs off the ground, raising them to a 90-degree angle. Lift up your hands, placing them either behind your head or crossed over your chest. Lift the upper portion of your torso off the ground, exhaling as you do so, inhaling on the way back down, exhaling again while coming up, and so on. If you’re a beginner, perform 10 repetitions in 2-3 sets. Increase the repetitions as they become easier for you.
Run at an incline
If you run at an incline, professional trainers suggest that you can burn up to 50% more calories than running on a flat surface. You can do this outdoors, such as on a hillside, or in your gym, inclining the treadmill. Warm up first by walking for five to ten minutes. After that, don’t start running straight away, but ease your body into it by jogging for the same amount of time, five to ten minutes. Only then break into a run, not necessarily a full sprint, just fast enough so that you can’t speak to anyone alongside you. Run for five minutes, then jog for five minutes, alternating between the two for 30-45 minutes.
People are reading
