Having a flat stomach free from fat can make you feel great about your body while also being evidence that you put effort into living a healthy lifestyle. Exercise, in conjunction with eating a nutritious diet, can help you achieve a flat set of abs. The key to finding the best exercise to reach this goal is to keep the intensity high while burning calories and building muscle.
Cardio Exercise
Cardio exercise helps you burn calories and excess body fat. As your overall body fat levels decrease, you can lose abdominal fat as well. The amount of calories you burn during a cardio workout depends on the activity, your weight, your intensity and the duration. Exercises that engage more of your muscles, such as cycling, running and kickboxing, will burn a higher rate of calories. While regular cardio exercise won't boost your metabolism like interval training can, it is less demanding on your joints and body, and can be completed for longer durations and more days of the week.
Interval Training
Interval training is a form of cardiovascular exercise, or cardio, that helps you burn a large number of calories in a shorter amount of time than traditional cardio workouts. During interval training, you alternate between a slow speed and a very fast speed. The duration of each interval can range from 30 seconds to two minutes. The slow periods should last long enough for you to catch your breath and allow your heart rate to slow down. You can use any form of cardio exercise during interval training. The total workout should last 20 to 40 minutes, with a warm-up and cool down. Select an activity, such as running or jumping rope, which you can perform at slow and fast speeds.
Ab Exercises
Ab exercises can be used to strengthen your stomach muscles. There are three sets of muscles that make up your abs: the obliques on your sides, the rectus abdominis on the front of your stomach and the transversus abdominis, which lies under the rectus abdominis. Strengthening these muscles can help make a natural girdle that will flatten your stomach and the appearance of your abs. It is important to equally train all of these muscle groups with crunching exercises that target the front abdominal muscles and twisting motions that target the obliques.
Strength Training
Improving your overall muscle mass can also help flatten your abs. Strength training allows you to build new muscle tissue, improve your metabolism, burn calories more effectively and help reduce body fat. Complete two to four strength training sessions a week that target your biceps, triceps, quadriceps, calves, hamstrings, back, shoulders and chest. Work for at least 30 minutes or until you perform 8 to 10 exercises total. To build muscle tissue, select weights that allow you to complete between six to eight repetitions. The last two to three repetitions should feel almost impossible to finish.
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