Exercises To Avoid A Tummy Tuck

If you want to avoid an expensive tummy tuck procedure, exercise may provide you with your solution. Exercise will help you reduce the fat that covers your belly muscles, tighten your abdominal skin and tone your abdominal muscles. Plus, there are workout options that may allow you to exercise at home without spending a lot of money.

Aerobic Exercise

Aerobic exercise helps reduce the fat covering your abdominal muscles by causing your body to burn calories at an accelerated rate. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends that all healthy adults under 65 years of age work out at a moderate intensity for at least 30 minutes on five days of the week. Fat loss may require you to work out for 60 to 90 minutes on most days of the week. The number of calories you consume plays a role in the rate at which you will lose fat, so focus on eating a well-balanced diet that limits caffeine, alcohol and extra calories from sugar. Common forms of aerobic exercise include bicycling, brisk walking, jogging, swimming and active sports like volleyball and basketball. If you do not participate in regular aerobic exercise now, start a daily exercise routine that consists of 10 minutes of aerobic exercise in addition to a 5-minute warm-up and cool down. As you become comfortable with this, slowly increase the intensity or duration of your workout.

Strength Training

Strength training helps give you a tight tummy by building more lean muscle mass throughout your body. Increased lean muscle allows you to burn more calories each day, even when at rest. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends that everyone under the age of 65 perform strength training on at least two days a week. A strength training workout consist of at least eight to 10 exercises of between eight and 12 repetitions of each exercise. Renee Cloe, an A.C.E. Personal Trainer at South Carolina University, advises starting out at a resistance level that causes you to fail on the 12th repetition of each set. Do not perform resistance exercise on the same muscle groups two days in a row, so your muscles can rest and grow. Common forms of resistance used for strength training include body weight, dumbbells, free weights, weight machines and homemade weights. Strength training exercises include anything that causes you to work against resistance, such as lunges, squats, push-ups, pull-ups, bench press, bicep curl, hamstring curl or calf raises.

Abdominal Training

Abdominal training is a form of strength training. Any form of exercise that focuses primarily on your abdominal muscles counts as abdominal training. As with strength training, never perform abdominal training more than every other day. Abdominal training may tone your abdominal muscles and belly skin but it burns fewer calories than aerobic exercise or strength training larger muscle groups, making them less beneficial to overall fat loss in your abdominal area, according to the book Exercise Physiology: Theory and Application to Fitness and Performance. Performing abdominal exercises alone will not firm and tone your tummy. Firm your abdominal muscles and skin faster by constantly holding your abdominal muscles tight throughout any workout.