The Best Exercise to Get Rid of a Large Lower & Upper Stomach Area

The Best Exercise to Get Rid of a Large Lower & Upper Stomach Area
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Accumulated weight in the lower and upper stomach area is a health risk and can be a detriment to your self-confidence. This excess girth also makes even the simplest of daily tasks, such as getting out of a car, difficult. Exercise is pivotal to free yourself from these complications. You will make the most progress by taking a multi-faceted approach.

Aerobic Exercise

Aerobic, or cardiovascular, exercise sits high atop the list of important exercises for stomach-fat reduction. Cardio burns fat throughout the entire body, which includes the stomach. All forms work effectively, provided you do something you like. If you force yourself to exercise, you run the risk of falling off the wagon and not achieving positive results. Running, cycling, swimming, kickboxing, jumping rope, biking and elliptical training are all good options.

Weight Training

Weight training builds muscle. The more muscle you have, the greater your metabolic rate will be. This, in turn, will cause you to burn more calories while at rest, reducing your stomach size faster. A good goal is to target all of your major muscle groups to ensure full development. Perform exercises like bench presses, shoulder presses, back rows, triceps extensions, biceps curls and squats. Work out two or three days a week.

Ab Exercises

Ab exercises often come first in people's minds when it comes to stomach fat loss. The truth of the matter is, ab exercises will not burn high amounts of fat in the stomach. This is the false notion known as spot reduction. However, ab exercises do help you achieve a tighter and more toned midsection as you lose weight, so they do have benefits. The goal is to target your lower abs, obliques and upper abs together in workouts to ensure you achieve full development. Perform exercises like hanging knee raises, reverse decline crunches, Russian twists and abdominal pull-ins.

Duration of Cardio

The length of your cardio workouts needs to be addressed when you are trying to lose stomach weight. Following a sporadic workout schedule where you only work out once in a while will compromise your progress. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends 60 to 90 minutes of physical activity performed five days a week for the best weight-loss results. If you have a busy schedule, work out multiple times during the day to accumulate your time.

Tips for Faster Progress

Interval training is performed by alternating your intensity back and forth from high to low throughout your cardio workouts. This will cause you to burn fat at a faster rate.
Working out on a stability ball with your weight-training exercises will force you to contract your abs to remain balanced. This will give you an ab workout by default. Include the ball with as many exercises as you can.
Circuit training is performed by going from one weight training exercise to the next with short rest breaks between exercises. This keeps your heart rate up and promotes faster weight loss. Take 30- to 45-second breaks between your exercises and perform three or four circuits.

References

Article reviewed by John Hagemann Last updated on: Sep 1, 2011

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