Activities, like jogging and aerobics classes, can burn calories that may shrink a pot belly, but core exercises that target the abdomen will tone your stomach muscles. Together, these two types of exercises will flatten your stomach and keep it that way--as long as you maintain a healthy diet.
Cardio
Physical activities, such as sports, swimming, brisk walking and using cardio machines like treadmills and ellipticals are necessary components of an exercise program, if you want to keep your stomach flat. How often you'll need to exercise and how hard the exercise needs to be varies, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends 30 to 90 minutes of cardio on most days of the week. If there isn't a lot of excess weight around your stomach, then you might get away with the minimum amount of exercise for health reasons, but you can do more if you have a lot of extra belly weight.
Standing Medicine Ball Trunk Rotations
Standing medicine ball trunk rotations are an intermediate exercise that works all the muscles of the abdomen, according to the American Council on Exercise. It is simple to do, but your posture is critical during the exercise. Hold a medicine ball in front of your body at chest height. Bend your elbows so that the ball is close to your chest. You need to stand up straight and squeeze your stomach as you rotate your shoulders in each direction. You must remain upright and rotate your spine from side-to-side, without leaning. Once you get the basic motion of this exercise, you can hold the medicine ball at chest height, with your arms straight, to increase the difficulty.
Stability Ball Pike
The stability ball pike is a challenging exercise that works all parts of your abdominal muscles. It requires a stability ball, which you can buy at a sporting goods store or even big box retailers. The ball pikes are done by lying on a stability ball with the ball positioned under the toes and the hands on the floor, as in push up position. Start with your torso parallel to the floor with your arms straight on the floor. Then, raise your hips up into the air and roll the ball forward until your hips are above your shoulders. The hands, shoulders and hips form a straight line perpendicular to the floor. The legs remain straight and the back flat throughout the exercise, which requires abdominal strength. Roll the ball backwards and drop your body back to parallel to the floor to finish one stability ball pike.
Member Comments