subject: The Best Exercise For A Flat Tummy [print this page] Want to know the best exercises for a toned and flat tummy? Is it sit ups? No, it has got to be crunches. Or, how about leg lifts?
While those are good exercises to strengthen your stomach muscles the problem is that they do not do too much to reduce fat. And, too much fat around the midsection is most everybodys problem when it comes to showing off a flat tummy.
So, what are the best exercises then for a flat tummy?
Well, this is going to sound surprising, but the best exercises are ones that work your arms and legs and a few other muscle groups including your core, or torso, which includes, yes, your tummy. These are exercises like the bench press and the clean and jerk, squats and dead lifts which fall under the category of compound or multi joint exercises because they work more than one body part at a time.
The reason that these exercises are so good are for a few reasons. First, they burn fat and that is one of the first steps most of us need to take to getting a flat tummy. But I can burn more calories in a half hour of running than I can in a half hour of lifting weights. Well, yes and no. If you lift weights in a traditional manner doing one exercise then moving to another one at a time you are not burning as many calories as you will be if you ran for the same amount of time. However, you will be building muscle and muscle weighs more than fat so the body must work harder and burn more fat throughout the day.
But, if you perform these exercises in a high intensity interval training format you will actually be burning more calories in a half hour than if you had spent that time running at the same pace the entire time. HIIT is simply moving from one exercise to another (after really exerting yourself) with only a brief period of rest in between. The benefit of this is that you actually increase your metabolism for hours after the exercise so that you are burning more calories for a longer period of time.
So the first benefit of these types of exercises is that they burn calories. The second reason these exercises are great for getting a flat tummy is because they inadvertently work the core muscles of your back and tummy. They also serve to increase your bodys metabolism so that you are burning more calories even when you are not working out.
Is that it? Just lifting weights? No cardio?
Well, remember that in HIIT you will be exerting yourself so much that weight lifting actually becomes a cardio exercise. However, if you want to do some running certainly, do that as well. But, no need to spend hours and hours running miles. What? You heard me. While running a mile does burn more calories than running ten 100 meter sprints, the sprints also serve to increase your resting metabolism rate just as the exercises above. Consequently, you are burning more calories throughout the day which, in time, will reveal your flat tummy.
