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Okay so this article is about ab exercises for women, while stomach exercises are important in our bid to lose belly fat, we all need to remember that we need to concentrate on full body fitness and not just on “spot reduction” stomach exercises. You need to tone muscle on your total body which will speed up your metabolism and improve the fat burning process, all helping towards our goal – “lose belly fat”.
That said, if you want to do some extra ab exercises that’s fine, it is important to strengthen our core, trunk area. This will aid with posture as well as helping to avoid painful trunk related injuries.
Just remember, if you want to lose belly fat and get toned abs, doing only ab exercises and other “spot reduction” stomach exercises simply won’t work if that’s the only exercise you are doing.
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You might gain a toned six pack, but you will still have a layer of belly fat hiding it…
As well as ensuring you do a full body workout and cardio, you also need to ensure you eat a healthy, nutritious diet, avoiding sugar and salt laden processed foods and of course limiting your alcohol intake. All the ab exercises, cardio and full body workouts in the world won’t help you lose belly fat if you don’t watch what you eat.
Right, let’s get back to the reason for this article – ab exercises for women.
Many of us women have major trouble with lower ab fat as well as lower back fat, these stomach exercises will help train all of your core trunk area. The stomach exercises described here are not only safe, but are also extremely effective ab exercises for women who want to lose belly fat and achieve that toned up abdomen.
First of all, remember that before any exercise, strenuous or not, you need to do some aerobic warm-up exercises and stretches before you begin, if you don’t you may well end up injuring yourself and not be able to exercise at all, totally defeating the point of what you are trying to achieve, i.e. to lose your belly fat.
First of all, remember that before any exercise, strenuous or not, you need to do some aerobic warm-up exercises and stretches before you begin, if you don’t you may well end up injuring yourself and not be able to exercise at all, totally defeating the point of what you are trying to achieve, i.e. to lose your belly fat.
The most excellent ab exercise for women – The Ab Plank.
This is one of the most effective stomach exercises and an extremely good ab exercise for women as it is an isometric stomach exercise, meaning that it is a static exercise where you are holding a position rather than doing repeated repetitions of a strenuous movement.
To perform the plank stomach exercise, lie flat on the floor or exercise mat on your belly. Next rise up on your hands and toes, keeping your back as straight as possible. Contract your tummy muscles and hold the position for 5 seconds and then lower yourself to the ground. Repeat this stomach exercise 5 times. As you become accustomed to completing this stomach exercise, you should increase the time you hold the position until you get to a point where you can no longer maintain a flat straight posture, but don’t increase the repetitions. With this exercise you need to ensure you keep your back straight and don’t point your bum to the sky or let your hips sag, this helps to work the most muscle groups and you will gain far more if you concentrate on this point.
Important note: Please please remember to breathe while doing this exercise and relax your neck.
Whatever you do, don’t cheat!
If you let you hips sag or point your bum to the sky, this stomach exercise will not work, you need to keep your back straight at all times, breathe and relax your neck. If you’re not sure if you’re doing the exercise correctly, either get a friend to guide you or do the exercise in front of a mirror.
Think you can’t do this ab exercise?
If you feel that your overall fitness level isn’t good enough for you to be able to hold the position on your hands with straight arms, no problem, start completing this stomach exercise on your elbows instead. This is so much easier to start with and as long as you focus on keeping your back straight it makes little difference, as you gain strength by completing the exercise you can work up to completing the full exercise and gain the additional benefits from working additional muscle groups.
Variations to this excellent ab exercise for women
First, as you gain strength, try lifting one leg, straighten backwards pointing your toes before returning to having both toes on the floor, then repeat with the other leg. The next stage is a continuation to the leg stretch above, once you have you leg stretched backwards, rather than returning your leg to the floor, bring your knee up to you chest, or as close as you can get, and then return to both feet on the ground. Again repeat with the other leg.
All these variation should be done slowly, count to 10 while straightening your leg and returning, the aim is to strengthen and tone muscles, doing these exercises quickly and without effort will not do anything to lose belly fat.
Another variation!
The Side Plank
The Side Plank
I would advise everyone to incorporate this exercise as not only does this stomach exercise reinforce the straight ab plank stomach exercise, it also works additional muscle groups to help towards your total body workout.
Lie on your side with your right hand on the floor, lift yourself up to a point where your right arm is straight, keeping your left arm at your side and keeping your body straight. Hold this position as long as you can and then return to the floor. Repeat 5 repetitions. Then turn over and repeat for your left side.
Again, if you prefer you can complete this stomach exercise on your elbows rather than on your hand; you can also alternate sides rather than completing all repetitions on one side before turning over.
The most important thing with all these stomach exercises is to keep you body straight, remember to breathe, relax your neck and complete the exercise slowly. This is an isometric exercise, not a speed trial, but that said we all need to complement these stomach exercises with some cardio exercises, sprint exercises, to get the metabolism going.
