Losing stomach fat around your lower abdominals can be tricky. According to Deborah Mullen, abdominal exercises won't reduce fat from your belly area. Trained abdominal muscles, can, however, improve your posture, increase your core strength and help you burn more calories when you do cardiovascular exercises. Combining cardio and strength-training exercises will help you shed lower stomach fat quickest when paired with a proper diet.
All About Cardio
Cardio will help you see the results of strength training as it will help you burn fat you may be storing around your midsection. There are two types of cardiovascular exercises, low- and high-intensity. Low-intensity, low-impact cardio workouts typically last 45 minutes to an hour and help you burn fat. This includes exercises such as swimming and walking when completed at brisk, sustainable pace. High-intensity cardio workouts involve interval training, meaning you incorporate short bursts of increased speed or intensity. High-intensity workouts increase your metabolic burn rate as well as keep you pumped most of the day. You should do high-intensity cardio exercise between 20 minutes to 30 minutes each day. The top high-intensity workouts include step aerobics, bicycling, and running.
Kickboxing
Real Women's Fitness describes Kickboxing as the perfect lower abdominal cardiovascular workout. Kickboxing targets the lower abdominals for a killer workout because of the types of kicking involved (such as round house kicks, which involve movement from your hip to the top of your foot). The speed involved in kickboxing helps to really work your lower abs back into gear, combining fat-burning with strength training.
Reverse Curls and The Hanging Knee Raise
Reverse curls are the most popular lower abdominal exercise. Basically lay flat on your back and place your hand under your lower back. Straighten out your legs. Keeping your back on the floor, tense your abs. Curl your knees up to your chest. When you think can't bring them any closer rock back on your hand to bring them in further while you tighten your abs more. Slowly lower your legs (for an extra challenge without relaxing your abdominal muscles). Repeat up to 20 repetitions. Dr. Charles reminds exercise buffs that the key to the reverse crunch is lifting your pelvis off the floor. For an extra challenge, try doing these on a decline by laying down on equipment with your feet pointed to the floor and your arms overhead. The hanging knee raise works your entire abdominal section. While doing a chinup, straighten out your entire body. Breathe in and tense your abs and bring your knees in toward your chest. When you are at the top of the motion Real Women's Fitness recommends rocking your pelvis to give a "final crunch" by slamming your knees towards your chest.
Related Tips
Fitness experts, personal trainers and health care professionals recommend a balanced diet when exercising. Ultimately, you will see little change in body shape if you continue the poor nutrition habits that caused a flabby belly to begin with. The American Heart Association recommends exercising at least 30 minutes each day. Doing so decreases your risk of developing coronary artery disease. Mix slow and steady cardio with high-intensity cardio routines. Even when walking or swimming, incorporate intervals of short bursts of increased speed. This will increase your burn rate but make the exercise continue to work after you finish.
If you want to lose lower stomach fat then you will need to lose overall body fat. I think everyone knows this now except for the few that still think they can spot reduce. While it's true that spot reduction is a myth it's also true that as you lose the weight you can target an area so that by the time you lose the fat it will be toned and not flabby.
Tips For You
1. When you lose lower stomach fat it will be flabby if you don't target it with specific exercises. Who wants to lose weight and be flabby? But I'm getting ahead of myself. First of all the goal is to lose overall fat, since we should all know you cannot spot reduce.
To lose the weight in a timely manner you need to eat 1200-1500 calorie a day, no less than 1200. The first day you learn to count calories and find out how many you're eating daily. Then the second day you reduce by 500 and continue to reduce until you hit the 1500, no less than 1200 goal.
2. You must keep track of your calories if you're not willing to do this then you're not going to lose weight and keep it off. Right after you begin to cut calories you should start a weight training program. Cardio is good, but weight training is better, since muscle burns calories.
As part of the weight training routine you add ab work, which will target lower stomach fat as well as muscle. Moreover, abs need to be hit hard with a lot of reps and at different angles. Super setting works best as you alternate ab exercises with no rest between sets for 15 minutes.
3. However, this isn't what makes the weight come off, so don't go there. It's the weight training that takes does it, especially working legs. The legs are the heaviest and toughest muscles to work, so if you work them hard you will burn more calories and lose more fat.
Back to the abs! When the lower stomach needs extra work you spend more time working that area. You do this by doing leg raises, windmills, ab pull ups, vacuum pose and reverse crunches as well as obliques, which are at the sides aka love handles. These all target the lower stomach fat area.
4. Your ab routine will go as below in super set fashion with no rest between sets. Once you complete the routine repeat it until the 15 minutes is up. If you're a beginner then build reps, sets and intensity over time.
20 oblique twists
50 bicycle abs and 50 leg raises
5 vacuum poses hold for 15 seconds
50 reverse crunches and 50 windmills
If you don't know how to perform the exercises you can view them on youtube and check resources below that show more detail.
