Love Handle ExercisesLove Handle Exercises That Really Work

I was personally never what most people would call “fat.” However, I’ve always had a little bit of a potbelly. I don’t know about you, but this was very frustrating for me. No matter what I do, that fat in my belly seemed the hardest to lose. It was both frustrating and embarrassing as I felt that I didn’t know how to tone my stomach. I was actually surprised how simple the secrets were once I discovered them myself. I will now share with you the secrets I found to get that slim abs. It’s amazing how easy these small changes can make such a huge difference.

Water Is The Only Drink

The first one is simple, but do not diminish the value of this advice as this works. Don’t “drink” your calories. I used to drink lots of coffee with sugar in it. I had no idea how much this daily habit was setting me back. Now, I drink nothing but water. Even the fructose in fruits and fruit juices actually store as fat in our bodies, so it will serve you well to stay away from those. Drink water. It will do wonders to your body and will help you achieve your goal, you’ll thank yourself for cutting out this habit.

Eat Often Like A Bird: Snacking Is Good

The people I know who struggle with weight usually say the same thing – they are either “too busy” to eat breakfast and will just make up for it by eating bigger meals during the day; or, they will just “eat out” as they do not have time to prepare a balanced meal. Not only is this heavy on your wallet, this can also get heavy on your belly and your body. The trick is to snack often and eat within half an hour of waking up to get your metabolism going early. When you snack often, you actually speed up your metabolism and feel fuller with less food. We go too long without a meal. When this happens, you end up storing a lot of your food as fat instead of burning it.

Eat Your Fruits And Vegetables

Fruits and vegetables are actually a great source of energy. I know some of us are accustomed to diving into a power drink or maybe a cookie or sandwich if we need a “pick me up.” However, fruits and vegetables being a natural source of slow burning carbohydrates, are a great little pick me ups that a lot of us forget about. The best way to utilize these great foods is to eat them with your protein during your meals that you actually feel energized and fuller throughout the day a lot longer than eating protein without them.

Avoid the Fast Food Bag and Gag: Bring Your Food With You

Your worst nemesis to achieving your goals and following a regimen on how to flatten your belly, is lack of planning. This is especially true when you are out where the temptation of eating out is higher. I find eating healthy at home is easier than when on the go. So what I do is just pack a lunch or snack and stuff them in my backpack. When you figure out the art of living a healthy lifestyle, nothing can ever go between you and your toned stomach. The trick is making this into a habit – start now.

Burning Calories: Do Stuff

Another simple yet effective technique is to take up a hobby that doesn’t involve your computer. I personally like rock-climbing or jogging with a “fitness buddy.” If this is too much for you, then you can pick something that’s less intense. The point is get out of the house! Get some fresh air, go for a walk, dance, stay active, wake those muscles up! As long as you’re out doing something this will boost your metabolism. This is one of the best and fastest way I know to developing the habits that will bring you closer to achieving your goals.

Again, just always remember to: drink lots of water, snack often, get lots of fruits and vegetables, pack healthy snacks and stay active. These are all small changes, but the small changes that would make all the difference. When you do all of them consistently, having that toned stomach you’ve always wanted will soon become a reality. Just keep at it and you’ll do fine.

My name is Leif Oakman and I feel passionately about the ability to have the physique you think you want. Please pop by my site tonedstomach.org to find more tips and information on abdominal exercises and having nice female abs.

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Workout programs designed to reduce the fat in the belly section in order to get a slim and toned belly can be very intimidating. It never looks easy. Don’t give up! I’ve been there myself and in this article, I would like to share with you three important things that I learned. If you are really serious about getting that flat and toned stomach, then the first thing you need to stop doing is to stop procrastinating! Don’t “plan” to start. Just start and keep at it! Second, arm yourself with as much accurate information as you can. People give up when they don’t see the results they expect and sometimes, the reason is as simple as they do not have the correct information. Lastly, choose a program that works for you that you can maintain and don’t give up until you see results!

I am speaking from personal experience. I lost thirty pounds in a span of two months. Admittedly, seeing the scale go up and down in those two months can be very discouraging. However, measuring your weight is just one way of measuring your success. We will talk about the importance of tracking our progress in a future article.

In the beginning, I just experimented on many different approaches – from exercise DVDs and working out at home, to registering for fun classes like belly dancing and hip hop, to going to the gym, while reading volumes of resources I can find. I was committed. I want to wear clothes that fit me well and look good on me without having to worry about the “bulges.” I don’t want to just admire the gorgeous sexy women strut around with their beautiful toned bodies, I wanted to be one of them!

I told myself that I am done with the extra weight. I need to get my rear in gear and start feeling great again! I’ve experimented on many different resources out there. One thing I learned is that if you stick with anything long enough, you will see results. I kept trying until I found one that I can maintain. One of the resources I found online was from Mike Greary, author of the book, “The Truth About Abs.” I continue to use his book as a resource so I can achieve a flat and slim female abs. I get regular newsletters from Mike and I like to share one recent article he sent which I find to be very interesting. Here are the highlights from Mike’s article on Tips for a Flat Belly. I’ve added a few comments myself which I hope you will find helpful:

1. Flip the Food Pyramid Upside-Down!

The USDA Food Pyramid, believe it or not, recommends 4-8 servings of whole grains per day! Yes! That’s a lot! The USDA actually recommends that you eat more grains than fruits and vegetables, lean meats and healthy fats. However, if you want to achieve a firm and toned belly, Mike recommends the following proportions instead.

40% of calories from healthy fats 30% of calories from protein 30% of calories from carbohydrates

After following Mike’s nutrition regimen I saw that my belly was getting smaller and firmer. However, that one time that I decided that I deserved a treat with toast, I immediately saw my belly get rounded and bloated! Not only does it not look good, it also didn’t feel good! I learned my lesson! With just two pieces of bread, all that hard work was undone!

2. Discard the sodas, including he diet ones!

Shame on you if you don’t know this by now. Sodas have a very high sugar content. Worse, “diet” sodas also contain aspartame and other forms of chemicals that are harmful to your body. Just stop drinking it! Wean yourself away from the sodas gradually if you cannot do it cold turkey. One trick I learned is whenever I have a craving for something, I brush my teeth first, drink water and most of the time, the craving disappears. It’s not “hunger,” that you are feeling. It’s just a craving. Mike recommends to drink a quart of pure water per 50 pounds of body weight per day. Therefore, if you weigh 150 lbs, you should try and consume at least 3 quarts of water a day. I tried this myself and I was surprised with how much weight I lost! Water is also a good cleansing agent, so I felt great!

3. Ditch the Starch!

Starch-based foods such as rice, potatoes, cereals and oats though considered “health foods” can also add on to stomach fat if you don’t keep it in control. However, if you really must have your fix, Mike has a system called “Every Other Day Diet System” (EODD) which allows you to eat starches and even sweets several days a week and still shed off the excess fat. That’s great news, right? It’s all about timing. It’s all about taking a “weekly” approach to foods rather than a daily approach. This method keeps your body and metabolism “guessing.” If your body can’t figure out what you’re up to, fat burning is more powerful.

4. Only Raw Foods in the Evening!

Raw veggies with your last meal and as a snack will really help your fatburning along. Mike started with red peppers because they are sweet. He says that the fat loss is well worth it.

If you really get hungry at night, Mike recommends to snack on boiled eggs and raw veggies. In a future article, I would like to talk about the difference in “hunger” and “craving.” Most likely at night, what you consider hunger may very well be just a craving. In weight loss, it is important to note the difference between the two. If you are really hungry, choose healthier alternatives for snacks especially before going to bed. If you are really serious about losing weight and get toned stomach and overall toned body, start by making this commitment right now.

5. Monitor your progress!

I’ve received many different ideas on how to tone your stomach, but this is a really good piece of advice my Fitness Expert friend shared with me. It is important to regularly check your progress. It is just as important as exercising and maintaining a healthy diet in the journey towards weight loss and getting toned. If anything, tracking your progress will keep you motivated and allow you to adhere to the program you’ve started. Weekly tracking of your weight and body measurements should be sufficient. However, do consider other ways to measure your results other than your weight. There are many factors that affect your weight and it can be very misleading if you use this as the only indicator to measure your success. Measuring your body fat and lean body mass is actually a better way. Also, consider practical ways to track your success, like trying out clothes and see how they fit you. This is actually a fun and encouraging way to rate your success.

Follow these simple tips, appreciate your little successes and you are on the success road to achieving those flat toned female abs you’ve always wanted!

To contact Jade and read more of her articles on how to achieve and maintain a toned stomach and learn simple and sustainable lower abs workout, please visit www.tonedstomach.org.

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In Part I we defined a strategy for evaluating your progress through the entire challenge. This is significant not simply for its own sake, but to help keep you motivated to remain focused. If you know you lost 3 inches in the first 3 days it will be that much more difficult for you to cheat and give up those inches.

Next we’ll go over how to plan your food intake for the challenge.

Plan Your Meals

One of the most popular excuses for eating poorly is insufficient time/planning/preparation/etc. So you’re a bad meal planner? Don’t sweat it, it’s correctable.

In fact, let’s begin dealing with it now.

If your seven day challenge commences on a Monday, start planning on the Friday or Saturday before. Make a list of all of the meals you will have Monday – Sunday. From that list we’ll produce a grocery list, do the shopping, and make the meals.

What should your meals be? Easy: protein and veggies. The only carbohydrate you will be permitted while doing this challenge is legumes, better known as beans: lentils, black beans, pinto beans, kidney beans, and my personal favorite, refried beans.

Why legumes? Two reasons: first, it’s challenging to give up carbohydrate cold turkey and the legumes should help satisfy some part of your carb hankering. Second, with no carbohydrate whatsoever it is easy to exhaust your energy and feel depleted. Where energy is concerned beans are your friend.

Items to avoid:

white foods (bread, pasta, potatoes, rice)

dairy

any foods with added sugar

any drinks except water (we usually tend to drink a huge amount of caloriesstick to water for a week)

The above mentioned foods will cause a glycemic surge, which in turn will cause your system to attempt to store incoming calories as fat. To keep this from happening you will ingest foods for seven days that don’t trigger a glycemic spike.

Some sample meals from my own menu:

six egg whites microwaved over a cup of refried beans

grilled chicken with blackening spice (it’s easy to find a recipe, just be sure to omit sugar) and raw spinach with olive oil and pepper

grilled hamburger patty with mustard (most mustards contain no sugar – check out the label) steamed green beans (found in the frozen food aisle, microwaveable in 4 minutes or less)

broiled flank steak with salt and pepper and steamed broccoli with olive oil

baked chicken breast topped with a paste of olive oil, cilantro, cumin, and chili powder with raw spinach and olive oil

grilled tuna steak with blackening spice and steamed green beans with olive oil

If I really must snack between meals I’ll grab a half-cup (roughly a handful) of nuts, preferably raw and without all of the unpronounceable chemicals used to “dry roast” nuts.

Once you’ve put together your menu for the week, go shopping and then prepare any food that needs preparation to make sure that cooking is as simple as possible: cleaning and trimming chicken, making hamburger patties, etc.

Go!

As soon as your food is prepared and you’ve taken your measurements you’re all set for day one. Now it’s time for you to execute.

Eat meals well before you’re very hungry, typically 2-3 hours apart. If you permit yourself to get very hungry your judgement will go out the window and you’ll be more prone to cheat.

Keep the meals small and frequent. This will prevent hunger from tempting you throughout the day.

Take your measurements every day at the same time. Impedance scales are usually affected by hydration levels, so I usually step on the scale upon waking to make sure that the measurements are consistent. If your numbers rise a little on one day, don’t fret. Fluctuation is natural.

If you’re tempted to cheat (and you will be, it’s ok) there are several tricks you can use to stay on track:

have some nuts for a snack along with a couple of large glasses of water to fill you up

have a stick of sugarfree gum (sugar substitutes can cause a tiny glycemic spike, however, so keep the gum to a minimum)

open your notebook or computer, take a look at measurements, and imagine how great it’s going to be tomorrow when they’ve improved – IF you keep on track

keep a notebook handy and whenever you have the urge to cheat, make a note of what it is you want – on the cheat day right after the completion of the challenge you’ll treat yourself with whatever you want from your “cheat notebook”

I once worked with a well-known actor who would buy whatever it was he wanted when he had the impulse to cheat – cookies, chocolate, cake, etc – and take it home and put it in the freezer for when his cheat day arrived at the end of the week. It satisfied his urge and at the end of the week he had a freezer stuffed with junk food that he usually ended up throwing away. A waste, yes, but much better than blowing it on your waist.

At the conclusion of the week have a look at your numbers and see how you performed.

When you have a successful challenge behind you the next job (after you take that well-earned cheat day to have anything you like) is to take the lessons learned and make them into routines that will last much longer than a week.

You do want those six-pack abs to stick around for awhile, don’t you?

To get tone, sport a slimmer waist, and change your life, check out the world’s most effective waist exercise program. Bar none.

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I’m sharing a heretical fact with you: the average man or woman doesn’t need to exercise to lose excess weight.

Shhhh. Don’t tell anyone or the whole fitness industry will collapse like a tower of ThighMasters.

Seems crazy, right? It’s not. A couple of simple changes to your food consumption are all that’s required to start dropping excess body fat.

When you blend nutritional changes with a good workout program that pushes you, your body evolves into something looking like a Grecian sculpture. Positively droolworthy. Yum.

This challenge is one you can try on your own and will have you burning off bodyfat in 7 days without a lick of exercise, but even more important, you’ll learn to support diet habits that will have you slim and hot very quickly. Combine those habits with a superb waist exercise plan and you will have a formula for an unbelievably trim and magnificent you.

Ready to uncover some killer tips about changing your food habits and your waist? Strap in

Get a Bodyfat Scale

To be able to transform your body we first have to start measuring it. While body weight is one indicator of fat loss, it’s nowhere close to the most accurate and it can sometimes be downright incorrect.

To illustrate, adding muscle mass is a huge catalyst to bodyfat loss, but because muscle is heavier than fat your weight will increase even though you may shed fat. So even if you’re adding healthy muscle and shedding fat, you can’t tell that you’re heading in the right direction just by looking at the number on the scale.

To avoid getting wrong (and demoralizing) signals we’re going to gauge body fat percentage instead. While impedance scales aren’t the most precise way of determining bodyfat composition, the least expensive ones available on the market today can handle computing bodyfat accurately from day-to-day.

I own a Taylor 5593 that has been instrumental in helping me shed 10 lbs of bodyfat quickly. Do a little shopping around and buy one that will work for you. Most can be purchased for $50 or less.

Get one. Right now.

Bodyfat percentage is one measurement we’ll use to evaluate your progress. The others? I’m glad you asked…

Take Your Measurements

Begin by taking the following measurements and documenting them in a noteboook, your computer, or your phone. Or your notebook computer. Or your notebook phone. Just make it happen.

total weight

body fat percentage

waistline (work with a soft fabric measuring tape to measure your waist at the navel)

hips

both upper arms

both thighs

At the same time every day during the challenge you are going to take these measurements, preferably upon waking. So we’ll be keeping track of how you’re progressing using the following three metrics:

weight lost

bodyfat lost

inches lost

Any one of these can be a bit imprecise, but all three offers you an adequate picture of what is happening with your body throughout the challenge.

Now that you have a baseline for your progress, it’s time to take a look at your food “programming”, which we’ll do in Part II of this article.

To get fit, sport a slimmer waist, and change your life, check out the world’s most effective waist exercise program. Bar none.

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The right waist exercise system won’t just have you exhibiting a perfect set of starealicious abs, your life will change at the same time, and not always in ways which you might expect.

Doubt me? Follow along…

Gettin’ Stronger

This is actually the obvious one, but there’s more to it than you might think. Sure, your stomach muscles and core will be stronger. That’s part of the buzz of going deep into a good quality waist exercise regimen, right? But what you may not understand is that if you select the right waist exercise regimen your entire body will be stronger.

Better yet, your mind will become stronger. You’ll discover how to persevere and break through obstacles. You’ll learn how to transcend that which you formerly imagined were your limits. These things will apply not only to your physical life, but to your entire lifestyle.

Kick Your Confidence Up a Notch

You’re gonna look better, yes. A lot better.

But you’re not just going to be more confident because you’ll look hot (although this is an incredible rationale to feel self-assured) but you’ll feel more self-assured because of the things you’re going to find out about your body and your will.

The most effective waist exercise plan won’t just slim you down and make you alluring, it will work you in many ways you never considered possible. Finding out that you can survive an exercise session that you didn’t think you’d endure will give you the heart to take on anything.

Happy Happy Happy

This might be the most essential reason to pick the right waist exercise system: you’ll be happier

Yes, having the waistline of a greek god or goddess will make you pleased. But a lot more satisfying is the sense of realizing goals on a weekly basis.

What can be more happy-inducing than knowing that last week you attained something and that next week you’ll do the same? Yes, it’s going to be hard work, but that sense of achievement is tough to find, and the right regimen makes it possible to do often.

Get accustomed to the experience – it’s going to turn into a habit!

Be More

A workout of 20 crunches and 20 leg lifts will at best firm up your abs a tad.

But the right workout does not only change your body, it will make you into something more. The ideal workout program can help you to make more of yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

If you would like the equipment to create a superior you, examine carefully the type of ab regimen you’re choosing. Does it challenge you on a daily basis? Is it fun? Is it tough? Are you concerned that you might not be able to complete it?

If the answer to any of the above is “no”, then take a second look at your regimen. It – and you – can be more.

To discover more ways to sculpt six-pack abs, visit the waist exercise authority and get started today.

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The squat, commonly known as the air squat, is one of the most complete exercises that can be done for your body. Not only does the squat work your abdominal area, it also works out several other major muscle groups: the hamstrings, quadriceps, and lower back.

But hold it, you say, how are squats gonna benefit my middle? Excellent question.

An excellent waist exercise regimen doesn’t just pinpoint the muscles of your core, it focuses on your entire body. Not only are you looking to exercise your entire body in order to burn fat to observe those marvelous abs beneath, but your entire body must get stronger in order for your ab muscles to become stronger.

The Movement

Start in a neutral standing position with your feet about shoulder width apart. To begin the exercise, move your butt back as if you are going to sit on a small box behind you. As you descend, lift up your hands in front of you to help keep your balance and keep your weight in your heels. If you’re struggling to freely wiggle your toes, you don’t have enough of your weight on your heels.

Keep your chest up and your back straight while you squat. Bending your spine so that your chest faces the ground is not only unhealthy for your back, it cuts down on the effectiveness of the squat. As you get lower in the squat, the most likely portion of your back to curve will be the lower lumbar region. Fight it and keep your back straight, monitoring in a mirror or with your hand as appropriate.

During the entire squat keep your head in a fairly neutral position by focusing on a place on the floor 4-6′ in front of you.

Continue to lower yourself until the crease of your hips is a bit lower than the top of your knees. This is the bottom of your squat. Your knees must be behind your toes and your shins need to be near-perpendicular to the ground. Your whole back should also be straight, together with your lumbar spine.

Reverse the movement and come out of the squat by standing back up, all the while maintaining your weight in your heels and your back straight. As you come up you may lower your arms if you want.

The squat is finished when there’s no longer any bend in your hips or your knees.

Start the next repetition by lowering yourself yet again.

Scaling the Squat

The squat may be made more difficult with the addition of weight (e.g. kettlebells, a barbell across the back, free weights in each hand, milk jugs, etc) or by squatting on one leg with the other leg straight out in front of you, generally known as the pistol.

The squat should not be made any easier than the bodyweight, or air squat. Some folks may have mobility issues in their ankles that keep them from lowering themselves completely into the squat while keeping their weight in their heels, however. This may be treated by sliding ” – 1″ blocks or plates underneath the heels while squatting as well as employing different stretches to help increase ankle flexibility.

To find more helpful tips on sculpting six-pack abs, check out the waist exercise authority and get started today.

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I have some bad news. Your waist exercises are eventually going to fail you. Most workout plans do, and for a number of different reasons: boredom, frustration, inadequate results, plateaus, or just simple ineffectiveness.

There’s good news, however: there are 4 ways to bulletproof your waist exercises to ensure they don’t fail. Instead, your routine can continue to sculpt your body, help your lifestyle, and improve your health. We’re going to discuss the initial two tactics here, and the last two in Why Your Waist Exercise Routine Will Fail, Part II.

Let’s roll…

The Failure of Traditional Programming

Traditional waist exercise routines usually fail because they’re discontinued. This generally occurs for a couple of reasons: boredom and perceived ineffectiveness.

The majority of exercise programs are incredibly boring. “Do 100 crunches every day for a year.” Yeah, right. Just thinking about it is sufficient to put me to sleep.

Even for intrepid exercise enthusiasts who happen to be game enough to hang in there with a bland exercise routine for months, most ultimately quit because the routine loses its perceived effectiveness. In short, the exercise routines no longer apparently work.

The body adjusts to the stresses it experiences – e.g. “100 crunches a day” – so that it is able to handle those stresses. The end result is that your own body will develop just enough to handle 100 crunches but no further.

This is called a “plateau” and can be incredibly frustrating. How does a person climb past plateaus? I’m glad you asked.

Mix it Up

The first key to ensuring the success of your waist exercise routine is to utilize variety. Mix and match a number of exercises in numerous combinations so that you seldom do the same routine twice. I suggest programming the same routine once every 1-4 months if only in the interests of tracking growth, which I’ll explain in further detail below.

For example, let’s say you’re doing waist exercises 4 days every week, Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. One week’s schedule might look like this:

Monday – 4 rounds for time of: 5 push ups, 10 bicycle crunches, 15 air squats

Tuesday – as many rounds as possible (“AMRAP”) in 10 minutes, where each round is: 4 rocket jumps, 7 overhead squats, 12 butterfly situps

Thursday – for time: 10 lying leg extensions, 15 air squats, 20 butterfly situps, 25 mountain climbers, 35 crunches

Friday – 7-to-1 lying leg raises and burpees (e.g. 7 lying leg raises, 7 burpees; 6 LLR, 6 burpees; 5 LLR, 5 burpees; etc to 1 LLR, 1 burpee)

The following week will feature four totally different workouts which may or may not involve some of the above exercises.

Simply by mixing it up and keeping your waist exercise routine varied, you not only will get continued results but you’ll remain engaged and interested, which is key to keeping you invested in your program.

Short and Intense

I know very few folks who look forward to a daily hourlong workout. Not only is it more challenging to plan long workouts, but it makes it much more likely you’ll give up. Even more importantly, it’s not how long you work out that matters, it’s the workout’s intensity.

To put it a different way, it’s harder to keep up the intensity required for 60 minutes than it is for 5-10.

The ideal way to carve your waistline into an attention-worthy midriff is to keep your waist exercise routine brief and intense. Give 100% of your sweat and effort for 5-10 minutes and you’ll start seeing results very rapidly.

If you’re just getting started with your waist exercises, then you should make an effort to be sweating pretty heavily by the end of your workout. After a few weeks you should be targeting significant discomfort: muscle fatigue, heavy breathing, and sweating like crazy. The more intense the session, the better your results will be.

The caveat here is you should of course observe strict form and never work through “bad” pain, like swelling, chest pain, joint pain, etc.

In Part II we’ll deal with the last two techniques you can employ to make your waist exercises beneficial and fulfilling.

If you’re looking for more helpful tips on sculpting six-pack abs, go to the waist exercise authority and get started today.

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If your weekly waist exercise regimen is big on movements that are dedicated to a single area of your core, it’s time for you to think about occasionally sprinkling in some cross body crunches. This gem strikes all the important notes: the upper abdominal muscles, the lower abs, and the oblique muscles.

Let’s get started.

The Starting Position

Lie on a yoga mat or rug on the floor and bend your knees at a 75 angle. Position your feet flat on the ground and position your hands behind or on each side of your head. Don’t interlace your fingers so you’re not tempted to pull on your head with your arms instead of making use of your abs. Finally, flex your upper abs to pull your head and shoulders up off the floor.

The Movement

Contract your lower stomach muscles to raise your left knee. At the same time, utilize your upper stomach muscles to move your right shoulder upward and across your body until your left knee and right elbow make contact.

Keep the abs solid and lower both your knee and shoulder to go back to the starting position.

Repeat the motion, this time with your right knee and left shoulder. When you’ve returned to the beginning position you have finished one rep.

Be sure you utilize your abdominal muscles to elevate and lower your knee and shoulder. Yet another mistake is to move the elbow rather than the shoulder, which entirely removes the load from your abdominal area.

Scaling the Cross Body Crunch

To make the cross body crunch easier to perform try varying how much you raise the head and shoulders off the ground. The higher your lift up your upper body, the more stress on your ab muscles and the tougher the exercise is going to be. Lowering your upper body or resting your head and shoulders on the ground will make the exercise easier to perform.

You may also alter the difficulty of the exercise by adjusting the angle of your legs. The straighter your legs are, the greater the range of motion required to finish the movement and the tougher the exercise will be. To make the exercise easier, move your feet in as close to your glutes as you possibly can.

To totally scorch your stomach muscles, try executing the exercise with straight legs. Keep in mind, though, that the straighter your legs are, the greater the stress put on the lower back, so make sure to press your lumbar region into the ground all throughout this exercise.

If you’re searching for more ways to sculpt six-pack abs, visit the waist exercise authority and get started today.

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You want a new look. One replete with a set of amazing, solid abs as well as a slim waist. The good news is that it’s possible and in your grasp.

The bad news? Wellthere isn’t any bad news. There’s just some hard work ahead of you, that’s all. But you realized that, didn’t you?

All right, let’s go…

Get a Logbook

Simple, huh? Yet this is actually the first, crucial step. People need to have feedback to remain engaged with any fresh program until it becomes habit. Your logbook will supply that feedback and allow you to plan for and invest in your waist exercise regimen.

Buy a simple 3×5″ notebook at any drugstore or create a document or spreadsheet on your computer. The notebook is preferable simply because it’s more convenient to have by your side irrespective of where you are and write notes shortly after your waist exercise workout.

Choose a Schedule

Now it’s time for you to determine when you’re going to exercise every week. An exceptional schedule for the average person is 3 days on, 1 day off. This permits you to train at high intensity for 3 days, then just as your body is starting to get fatigued you permit yourself a day to rest before you start the cycle all over again.

The 3/1 plan, however, can be a little tricky to coordinate in our normal 5 days on, 2 days off work-oriented world, so other effective “5 day workweek” based plans are Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays; and Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

The former (four days per week) is certainly more strenuous than the latter, the 3-day-per-week schedule. If you’re a newcomer to exercise start with 3 days weekly and move to 4 days whenever you feel comfortable.

Program Your First Month

To start, you’re going to program your first four weeks of workouts ahead of time and utilize a scoring process to create the workouts. Each workout will either be timed or points-based, and at the end of the workout you’ll jot down your score next to the workout inside your logbook. If you replicate a workout the next month you’ll be able to evaluate your growth.

Timed workouts will be created by arranging certain combinations of exercises into rounds, then setting the number of rounds to be done, usually 3 to 5.

A sample of a timed workout:

3 rounds for time of:

* 10 pushups

* 15 cross body crunches

* 15 squats

To perform this workout, just start your stopwatch (a smartphone with a stopwatch function will do) and do one round of 10 pushups, followed by 15 cross body crunches, then 15 squats. Then repeat the round twice more.

Timed workouts can also be designed by creating a few rounds during which each exercise is repeated the same number of times. One example:

21 – 15 – 9:

* mountain climbers

* butterfly situps

In other words, 21 mountain climbers, then 21 butterfly situps, 15 mountain climbers then 15 butterfly situps, and 9 mountain climbers then 9 situps.

Yet another example:

10, 9, 8, 7, 1:

* burpee

* bent knee hip raise

Which is 10 burpees then 10 bent knee hip raises, 9 burpees then 9 bent knee hip raises, 8 burpees then 8 bent knee hip raises, down to 1 burpee and 1 bent knee hip raise. It doesn’t seem like much but it’s incredibly strenuous

The points-based workout is known as an As Many Rounds As Possible workout, or “AMRAP”. AMRAPs are made by putting together a particular number of exercises within a round then setting a time limit. Your score will be the number of rounds you can carry out within that time limit.

Example:

10 minute AMRAP, in which a round is:

5 pike pushups

7 rocket jump

12 lying leg raises

Start the clock, start working, and keep track of the number of rounds you complete. When time runs out, your score is the number of rounds performed in addition to the number of extra reps, e.g. “5 rounds plus 5 pike pushups plus 4 rocket jumps”.

Use the above samples, or take exercises and programs from the Ewaist Exercise site to plan the first month of workouts in your log book.

Get Crunchin’

Workouts must be brief (5-15 minutes) and strenuous. If you’re not breathing heavily and sweating profusely at the end of your training session your body wasn’t stressed enough and you most likely wasted your time and energy.

It’s ok if you can’t sustain your initial pace in your waist exercise workouts, and it’s typical to come out of the gates too quickly. In the initial months of your waist exercise program, you can slow down through the workout when necessary, but do not stop. Always keep moving.

Once you’ve completed the first month of workouts, you can again plan a month’s worth of workouts beforehand or scale back to programming simply a week at a time. Just remember to duplicate the same workouts not more than once per month.

Now it’s time for you to get moving. Go purchase your notebook, create your program, and begin working. We’ll see you on the beach!

If you’re looking for more ways to create six-pack abs, visit the waist exercise authority and start now.

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Today we introduce the Butterfly Situp, so called because the legs are kept in the “Butterfly Stretch” position sitting on the floor with the soles of the feet together and the knees aimed outward.

The Butterfly Situp is highly effective because not only does it emphasize the upper abdominals, but it forces the lower abdominals to engage as well, often the harder section of the stomach wall to exercise. The hip flexors are taken out of the equation by the distinctive position of the legs and the entire abdominal wall is trained.

The Starting Position

For this exercise we’ll use a rolled-up towel ~2-4″ in diameter put beneath the low back to stress the abdominals in a wider range of motion. Without the towel the lower lumbar region will be coming in contact with the ground and the distance through which the abdominals must contract to complete the situp will be smaller. A piece of equipment called the AbMat can be a decent alternative to the rolled-up towel – the AbMat won’t slip and suitably fits the lower back – but I encourage trying the towel to start with and saving the $30.

Take a seat on the floor with the soles of your feet together and your knees directed outward. A floor with some give – carpet or yoga mat – is preferable to a wood or concrete floor. Put the towel roll against your butt. Bring your feet into you as far as you are able to, sit up as upright as possible, reach forward and touch the ground in front of your feet with both hands.

The Movement

Lift up your arms straight up over your head and at the same time lower your upper body backwards until you are lying down on the floor with your arms overhead and your legs still in the butterfly positio

To return to the beginning position draw your straight arms up over your face. As they pass by your face, look down in the direction of your legs and tighten your stomach muscles to pull your torso off the floor and towards your feet.

Finish the movement by sitting up completely so your torso is at least vertical with respect to the floor and reach for the floor in front of your feet with both hands.

Scaling the Butterfly Situp

If the previous movement is too challenging or too easy as recommended, don’t sweat it. There are many techniques scale the exercise so your core is appropriately taxed.

If the movement as prescribed above is too hard, try sliding your feet out one or two inches away from your body. The farther out your feet are, the greater your hip flexors can help and the less difficult the movement is going to be. Consider, though, that the easier the movement is, the less work you are actually doing on your stomach muscles and the less effective the exercise will be.

If the movement as prescribed gets to be too easy, the difficulty of the movement can be raised by switching your hand and arm positioning. Instead of keeping your arms straight overhead and using them to help the movement, instead position your hands on each side of your head in the common “situp” pose. To make the movement even more difficult place your hands on your chest.

If you’re looking for more ways to sculpt six-pack abs, visit the waist exercise authority and get started today.

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