When you have a flat tummy, your clothes fit better and certain everyday activities, like tying your shoes, are easier. More importantly, losing belly fat is good for your health. Excess abdominal fat increases your risk of stroke, heart attack, diabetes and depression. Doing endless situps won't get you the flat belly you desire, though. Accomplishing this goal requires a well-rounded fitness routine.
Cardiovascular Exercise
Belly fat is relatively easy to burn off with cardiovascular exercise. To lose abdominal fat, you'll need between 30 and 60 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise daily. This exercise should be intense enough to raise your heart and breathing rate. Work out for at least 30 minutes at a time. After this time, your body has used up blood sugar supplies and begins burning fat. Cardiovascular exercise activities that burn large amounts of calories include jogging, step aerobics, cycling and working out on a ski machine or elliptical trainer.
Strength Training
Strength training should be a significant part of your flat tummy workout routine. Participating in twice-weekly strength training sessions helped reduce accumulation of belly fat in overweight women ages 25 to 44, found a study published in the "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition" in September 2007. Two or three days a week, do 20 to 30 minutes of lifting weights, using weight machines or resistance bands, or performing body weight exercises like pushups and body weight squats. In each exercise session, work each major muscle group, including your legs, arms, shoulders, chest, back and abdomen.
Toning Your Abdominal Muscles
Working your abdominal muscles won't burn fat from that area specifically, but it can help firm your abs, giving you a flatter stomach with better muscle definition. Exercises like crunches and leg raises can help firm the muscles in the center of your abdomen. To tone your obliques, the muscles on the sides of your waist, try trunk twists and side bends.
Swiss and Medicine Ball Exercises
Once your abs gain strength, you can work them even harder with Swiss ball and medicine ball exercises. The need to maintain your balance while using an exercise ball helps gives your abs and back more of a workout. With a Swiss ball, you might perform situps with your back on a ball, planks with your arms on the ball or bridges with your feet on the ball. With the medicine ball, you might do side bends holding the ball or sit and repeatedly pass the ball under both legs, making a vertical loop around your knees.
References
- Harvard University: Abdominal Fat and What to do About it
- University of Michigan; Timing is Everything: Why the Duration and Order of Your Exercise Matters; Sahand Rahnama; Oct. 17, 2005
- Harvard University: Calories Burned in 30 Minutes for People of Three Different Weights
- "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition;" Strength Training and Adiposity in Premenopausal Women: Strong, Healthy, and Empowered Study; Schmitz KH, et al.; September 2007
- University of Alabama at Birmingham: Belly Fat Can Increase Risk of Heart Disease, Diabetes
- Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: Working Your Abs
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