Get The Six Pack You’ve Always Wanted

Everyone wants nice tight abs, emphasized by a six-pack, yet it seems that people are prone to adding weight to the belly area first. Overeating and drinking excessive amounts of beer will quickly add inches to the waistline and give you a spare tire. Knowing how to burn belly fat will maximize the benefits from your ab workouts and help you shrink those extra inches. However, there is no magic formula or special cream that you can use to instantly transform your midsection. To burn belly fat you need a combination of diet and exercise, with a focus on increasing your metabolism.

Your belly fat might be covering firmed muscles that are lying underneath. If you are overeating and performing sit-ups or other ab workouts regularly, but not seeing the results you intended, the problem is your diet. A layer of fat covers Ab muscles. This means that you can be regularly toning your abs, while increasing the amount of fat that hides them. Reducing the amount of fat will reveal the toned abs you have been working on. Increasing your metabolism will ensure that you continually burn calories and reduce the amount of belly fat in your mid section.

Take both hands, make fists, and put your hands side by side. That is the approximate size of your stomach organ. Next time you eat a meal, look at your hands and remember that if you overeat, you are causing that muscle to stretch to hold large meals. Eating several small meals throughout the day will increase your metabolism without putting unnecessary stress on the stomach organ.

Visceral fat is the fat stored deeply, often in between organs. The stomach is prone to visceral fat, in addition to retro peritoneal and subcutaneous fat comprised the other two of the three types of belly fat. Visceral fat is highly sensitive to increased metabolism and is easy to burn. Once your body’s metabolism increases and you are in fat burning mode, this fat is one of the first types your body will burn. In addition to ab workouts that target the core stomach muscles, you must choose activities that will increase your metabolism, and burn calories through aerobic exercise. Running, interval training and key abdominal workouts is key for targeting the beer belly.

When choosing foods, make certain that the selections you make are those that help regulate metabolism. Foods that cause your blood sugar to spike will have a negative effect on your metabolism and will affect the fat burning process. By choosing the best foods such as whole grains, reducing sugar and refined carbohydrates, and burning calories you will effectively burn belly fat. Food that you want to stay away from, besides from the obvious like candy bars, ice cream, and fast food, are foods with refined sugars like white bread and cereals that are high in sugar. Whole wheat breads and cereals are great for you, but beware of breads that just say wheat. Just because it says wheat does not mean it is whole wheat.

Workouts that are great for focusing on the core are RevAbs and the 10 minute trainer.

Swimming For Health

Whenever you look up the various sports, such as biking, jogging, tennis and so on, one thing you will invariably see is that swimming is touted as one of the best overall physical activities, mostly because swimming will exercise every part of your body with no impact. And swimming has actually been pretty popular ever since the Olympic games. Michael Phelps breaking the gold medal record, the USA four man relay team that won by a fingernail, it was all super exciting. Have you ever heard of the new 100-meter world record holder Usain Bolt? He might not be a swimmer, but he trains in a pool.

You might never be a Michael Phelps or a Usain Bolt, but why not take a page out of their workout routine. Even if you do not know how to swim well, there are still many ways to get around it and enjoy swimming as a workout. You can even listen to music. There are waterproof cases for Ipods, so you can listen to your favorite tunes while you swim. Music can certainly help you along those long laps in an Olympic-sized pool. (Lest that sound like a plug for the IPod, rest assured that there are several types of waterproof radios and MP3 players on the market as well!)

You should also acquire a variety of props, such as a “Pull buoy” -a molded piece of foam, which you squeeze between your legs as you swim. You are forced then to use only your upper body and arms for swimming, and the buoy provides added resistance in the water. Then again, there are a variety of kick boards, which enable you to rest your upper arms on this appropriately shaped piece of foam, so that only your legs propel you through the water, thus giving your legs a pretty good workout.

Ever heard of aqua jogging?

For people who are just coming out of certain surgeries, or people who are extremely overweight, walking can be an almost insurmountable chore. But the water of a pool makes people extremely buoyant, and so practically anybody can exercise their limbs in water.

In order to aqua-jog, people wear a special foam belt around their waists, which helps keep them upright in the water. Then, simply “walk” or “run” across the bottom of the pool, and continue that motion once you get into deep water (the belt helps keep you vertical). Special finned gloves are also available to help propel you along. Aqua jogging is so effective that even tri-athletes are using it as a training tool – obviously they are aqua running, instead! Special foot floats or weighted boots are used to help increase muscle strength.

If you’re in to water aerobics, then there is quite a lot of gear you can pick up for that, as well.

Water gloves, wrist and ankle weights, and water aerobic shoes are a must have. Water noodles are fun to play with, too! There is a wide variety of exercise equipment and toys out there that will not only make your swimming routine a success, but enjoyable at the same time.

Swimming can be a great asset to your P90x workout routine or your 10 minute trainer workout.