If your goal is to achieve toned and visible abdominal muscles, be prepared to apply a comprehensive strategy. To flatten your abdominal muscles, you need to perform targeted exercises. However, simply flattening your abdominal muscles will not enable you to see them. The classic six-pack look requires reducing your body fat percentage with an overall exercise regimen. Consult your health care provider before beginning an exercise program.
Aerobic Exercise
Your weekly workout should consist of three days of low- to moderate-intensity aerobic exercise. At this intensity, the greatest percentage of calories burned is from fat. However, you must keep your heart rate in your target zone for at least 30 minutes for maximum fat burning effectiveness. To determine your target heart rate, subtract your age from 220 and multiply that number by between 55 percent to 80 percent, or 0.55 and 0.8. Low- to moderate-intensity aerobic exercise should keep your heart rate closer to 55 percent sub-maximal. Examples of low- to moderate-intensity aerobic exercises include walking, jogging, stationary cycling and lap swimming.
Interval Training
Interval training involves alternating periods of intense exercise with periods of active rest. For example, alternating intervals of jogging with intervals of walking. By adding intervals to your aerobic exercise, you boost the amount of calories you burn, says the Mayo Clinic. How quickly you add intervals to your workouts depends on your fitness level. Consult with a certified fitness professional to determine the most effective types of intervals to add to your training. The length of your intense intervals depends on how you feel on any given day.
Circuit Weight Training
On the days when you are not interval training, perform a weight training circuit. Your circuit should consist of separate exercise stations, with each station featuring a different resistance exercise. When you complete your circuit, you will have trained all your major muscle groups. Generally, it is best to select machine exercises for your circuit. Your circuit exercises should start with thigh extensions, then leg curls, calf raises, chest press, shoulder press, upright row, lat pulldown, hyper extension, bicep curl, tricep press down and the ab crunch machine. Because you move quickly between stations, your circuit provides effective fat burning. According to FitnessMagazine.com, circuit weight training burns 30 percent more calories than simply lifting weights. Because you are performing resistance exercises, you are increasing your lean muscle tissue. An increase in your lean body mass increases the amount of calories you burn at rest. A high resting metabolism helps you keep a low body fat percentage.
Abdominal Exercises
You need to perform targeted abdominal exercises every other day. Effective abdominal exercises include crunches, hanging leg raises, bicycles and situps. Begin with one set of 20 repetitions for each exercise. When 20 repetitions are no longer a challenge, perform your situps and crunches on an incline board. Also, you can increase the difficulty by holding a small weight plate behind your head. Wearing ankle weights while you perform hanging leg raises also causes your abdominal muscles to work harder.
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