Saturday, February 7, 2009

How To Get Abs Quickly

By Robert Casewood

Most people that shell-out their hard-earned funds on expensive ab machines and products touted to produce a six-pack "in no time" learn a painful lesson soon after. They find out too late that a lot if not all of these are just tools to take advantage of society's demand for faster washboard abs.

The physiological set-up of the human body makes our midsection a bit more difficult to harden and tone-up. People that don't exercise enough or suffer from slow metabolism have love-handles and potbellies because body fat is stored more around the belly than any other part of the body.

Truth is, the muscles that form the six-pack look aren't any harder to build-up and strengthen than our biceps, traps or pectorals. There's just more frustration in getting six-pack abs because of the stubborn layer of fat covering the contours and striations of the muscle tissue underneath.

Knowing the proper exercises to do, eating the right foods at the right time of the day, and leading a healthy lifestyle can be effective weapons in the fight against The Flab and can drastically reduce the time it takes to attain six-pack abs.

Donning sweats, grabbing a towel and going about the gym blindly doing reps on the ab machine is not the way to get abs quickly. Neither is limiting your food intake to diet shakes and tasteless crackers and boiled egg whites- this serves only to give you sense of feeling deprived, increasing the risk of going on a binge.

Studies show that the most effective exercises for targeting body fat are cardiovascular exercises that keep the heart rate at a steady, optimal rate (just below the maximum heart rate). These burn the most calories from body fat rather than from carbohydrates and glycogen stores. Glycogen is a substance that is essential to muscle repair and development.

Avoiding food with excess calories and saturated fat as well as eating the proper foods at the right times can also shorten the path to six pack abs significantly. Eating energy-rich foods early in the day can fuel our workouts and give us the energy boost we need to exercise properly.

Skipping meals (especially breakfast) is a big no-no as this causes our body to slow down our metabolism and this can actually lessen the calories we burn from belly fat. Experts say eating small meals throughout the day (yes, with snacks) is ultimately better than trying to cut down on caloric intake by foregoing meals. - 15438

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