Many men find that as soon as they hit middle age, their belly starts to grow. Getting rid of a pot belly in favor of a well-defined, muscular midsection takes hard work and dedication. An intense workout regime, comprised of weight training and cardiovascular exercise, along with a balanced, calorie-controlled diet can help you to trim your pot belly and reach your physique goals.
Squats
Free-weight exercises that use a lot of muscle groups should be the basis of your belly-busting routine, because they help to burn calories while building lean muscle and strength. Squats work your quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, calves and core muscles. They can also boost your metabolism, burn fat and increase your energy levels. Start your workouts with five sets of eight repetitions of any free-weight squat variation, such as back squats, front squats, Zercher squats or split squats.
Upper-Body and Core Training
John Romaniello, strength coach and author of "Final Phase Fat Loss," advises doing density circuits when you're training to lose fat. To do this, pick two upper-body exercises -- one pulling exercise such as a barbell row, face pull or chinup, and one pushing exercises like a bench press, shoulder press or pushup. And add a core exercise, such as reverse crunches or leg raises.
Set a timer for 15 minutes, and use a weight on each exercise that is about 50 percent of your single repetition maximum. Perform 10 reps on each exercise with no rest -- that's one round. Aim to do as many rounds as you can in the time, and attempt to increase the amount of work you do each session.
Isolation Circuit
Finish the weight training part of your workout with an isolation circuit. Trainer and bodybuilder Christian Thibaudeau advises that, while compound exercises should make up the majority of your routine, isolation exercises are useful for improving any body parts that are lagging behind. Isolations are single-joint exercises like leg curls, lateral raises and triceps pushdowns. Choose three to five exercises, and perform them in a circuit fashion for 15 reps each and five total rounds.
Cardiovascular Exercise
End your workout with some cardio. When beginning, the weights part of your workout will likely feel very difficult, so just perform 15 to 20 minutes of light activity, such as walking, or use an elliptical or stationary bike. As your fitness starts to improve, increase the intensity of your cardio, so that you do interval training -- short burst of high-intensity cardio, interspersed with longer periods of low intensity. Once this gets too easy, move on to even more advanced cardio drills, such as sprinting or kettlebell training.
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