I practiced this for a while before I was able to get the confidence to jump without fear of falling. I was very proud of myself, and excited to share it with everyone … Remember, practice makes perfect!

The Best Core Exercise

Build strong ABS

If you’re looking for a great way to build strong abs then you definitely need to add the plank to your workout. The Plank is one of my favourite core exercises because it targets all of your abdominal muscles- your Rectus Abdominis, Transverse Abdominis, and your Internal and External Obliques. All of your muscles are working to keep your hips stabilized and your spine in it’s neutral position. Your abs are in a  constant state of contraction which forces a large amount of blood to the muscles. You can start off holding this position for 30 seconds and try to work your way up to 1 minute. Remember to keep your abs contracted and your glutes (butt) tightly squeezed. 

This is a great exercise. In addition to proper diet and exercise, you can build a nice flat stomach and a strong core with the plank. Remember, you need get rid of the excess fat covering your belly through proper eating and consistent exercise. Add the plank to your workout to really challenge your core and make it better!

 Burn more calories, lose more fat.

If you’re like so many people who are looking for the best way to get rid of excess belly fat, then you may want to consider running. Running is one of the best cardio activities you can do if you want to burn a lot of calories. It’s an excellent way to strengthen your heart and increase your endurance. In fact, distance runners have bigger and stronger heart muscles than the average population. If you can run on a regular basis then losing fat will be quite easy. However, you have to be able to run for at least 30-60 minutes to really enjoy the calorie-burning benefits associated with running. This can be a challenge for most people but there is a simple way you can increase your stamina so you can run for longer periods. The answer lies in Interval Training.

First, start with a 3-5 minute warm-up of brisk walking.

Then, run for 2 minutes. This is your running interval.  A good speed would be anywhere between 5.0 and 5.5mph. To determine whether the speed is a good pace, look for cues on your body. You should be breathing fairly heavily but not panting. Also, you shouldn’t be able to talk comfortably while running. If you can talk, then run faster.

After 2 minutes, decrease the speed to between 3.0 and 3.5. This is your rest interval.  During this phase, you are giving your heart rate a chance to decrease, get your breathing back down (catch your breath), and give your legs a little bit of a breather. Two minutes should be enough time for you to recover.

Next, increase the speed again and start running.

Keep repeating this interval for 20 minutes. At the end of it, you would have ran for 10 minutes and walked for 10. After a few runs, you should begin to notice that running for 2 minutes is becoming easier. This is when you want to increase your running time to 3 minutes. Run for 3 minutes, and walk for 2. As your endurance increases, you’ll be able to run for 4, then 6, then 10 minutes straight. You’ll be surprised how fast your endurance increases. A lot of my clients have used this method of running with great results.

The other great thing about interval training is that the time goes by much faster. Instead of staying on one monotonous speed for 20 minutes, you’re constantly adjusting your speed and savouring your rest periods. Interval training is definitely a good fix for those who think running on the treadmill feels too long and boring.  

Give interval training a try if you want to increase your running time and burn a lot of calories in the process. Running consistently can definitely help you lose belly fat and get a flat stomach; you just have to be committed. Stay Strong. Kam

Summary:

Warmup for 5 minutes (walking)

Run for 2 minutes

Walk for 2 minutes

Cool down for 5 minutes (walking)

I came across a great article on about.com. It talks about the best cardio activities that burns the most calories. I have changed the rankings of some of the activities and only included activities that you can do on a regular basis. I doubt most of us can get cross country skiing done on a regular basis. I rank the ellptical training higher because it mimics the movements of a cross country skiier and it scientifically proven to burn more calories than any other “CARDIO” equipment besides running on the treadmill.

Remember to always warm up and cool down. 3-5 minutes warm-up and a 5 minute cool down.

1. Running

Running is one of best activities you can do. It doesn’t require special equipment (except some quality shoes) and you can do it anywhere. Best of all, you burn serious calories, especially if you add hills and sprints. A 145-lb person can burn 300 (at 5.2 mph) in 30 minutes. The downside is, it takes lots of practice and you should watch your knees and ankles for any discomfort or pain.

2. Elliptical Trainer

The elliptical trainer is a great way to build endurance while protecting your aching joints from high impact activities. Plus, if you use one with arms, it’s just like using a cross-country ski machine. The elliptical trainer is also a good choice for runners looking for a break from pounding the pavement. A 145-lb person burns about 300 calories in 30 minutes.

3. Bicycling

Outdoors or indoors, cycling gives some great cardio. Using all the power in your legs, you’ll increase endurance while burning lots of calories, anywhere from 250-500in 30 minutes, depending on how fast you go and how high your resistance is.

4. Swimming

Swimming, like cross-country skiing, is a full body exercise. The more body parts you involve in your workout, the more calories you’ll burn. Spend 30 minutes doing the breastroke and you’ll burn almost 400 calories. Best of all, your joints are fully supported so you don’t have to worry about high-impact injuries. It’s also great cross-training for other cardio activities.

5. Step Aerobics

Step aerobics has yet to lose its luster for many gym-goers and it’s a good thing. Step is one tough workout that targets your legs, butt and hips while burning almost 400 calories in 30 minutes (during high intensity sessions). Though it might look complicated, step is easy to learn if you start with a beginner class or video.

6. Walking

If you put a little oomph into it, walking is a great exercise, burning about 180 calories in 30 minutes. Adding hills, sprints or even a few minutes of jogging can increase the amount of calories you burn. Make sure you walk briskly–pretend you’re trying to catch a bus–and keep you head up, back straight and swing your arms.

Exercises Designed to Burn Fat

Lose love handles, burn belly fat, get a flat stomach

WITHOUT doing an “AB” workout

This week’s featured exercise: SQUAT – CURL – PRESS

The name says it all. A squat with a bicep curl and shoulder press. Why so many things at once? Well why not?

• First, doing an exercise like this allows you to burn more calories in a shorter period of time.
• Next, you are building more muscles groups at once. This exercise strengthens and tones your glutes (butt), quads (thighs), hamstrings (behind your legs), abs, biceps and delts (shoulders) all at once.
• Finally, by working so many muscles at once, you increase your heartrate to levels comparable to high-intensity cardio. In other words, you get the benefits of a cardio workout and weight training workout with ONE exercise. Pretty impressive huh!? – I think so!

Which exercise do you think will burn more calories and help you get rid of your love handles – crunches that work ONLY ONE section of your abdominal muscles, or an exercise that blasts your glutes, quads, hamstrings, abs, arms and shoulders? – It’s not rocket science folks. Focus on exercises that work your major muscle groups? Leave the 1000 sit-ups and crunches for those who don’t want to listen.

What’s really good about this is that you don’t actually have to destroy your abs to get a flat stomach. In fact, doing any amount of ab exercises will do absolutely ZERO to help you get rid of belly fat. That’s because you needs to burn off the excess fat that lives ABOVE your abdominal wall. Doing exercises like the Squat, curl and press helps you burn a lot more calories in a shorter period of time.

Keep checking back as I’ll be posting more fat firing, stomach shredding, butt blasting exercises! (Alliterations are cool!)

Stay up!

Kam.

Learn ten tips to lose love handles

Burn Belly Fat with No Equipment

No Weights, No Problem

It’s a busy day, everything that can go wrong, goes wrong! You’re running late and you realise that you won’t have time to make it to the gym. Well your day isn’t a complete bust, you can get a quick fat burning workout with absolutely no equipment. All you need is a little space and 15 minutes.

Perform the following:

15 squats,

15 lunges,

15 push-ups (modified if you are female, or weak)

20 Sit ups

After resting for 2 minutes, repeat the circuit two more times so a total of 3 sets. Remember to rest for 2 minutes between each circuit because you WILL be tired.

This routine will definitely get your heartrate going so you’ve got your cardio covered. Squats and lunges work the muscles of your entire lower body – Glutes, quads and hamstrings. Pushups work your triceps and shoulders while incorporating your core muscles. The situps are a great abdominal workout.

So not being able to go to the gym is not an excuse to quit on your fat loss goals. Remember every single day is a step closer to your goal of permanently losing weight so you can have a nice flat stomach, and a great body overall. Fitness is a marathon, it’s not a sprint. Don’t ever think it’s ok to lose a whole day because you were busy. If you want it bad enough, you will find a way.

No Weights, no problem – do this fat burning workout with no equipment.

If you are having a poor eating day, try these five food fixes for a flat stomach. You will learn some quick and easy tips for eating healthier.

Discover 10 easy tips to lose love handles

I know this won’t be easy for a lot of you to accept. But my aim is not to make things easy, it’s to give you the truth so you can know what it really takes to be fit and healthy:

Whenever I get a new client at the gym, one of the first things they tell me is, “I want to do lots of exercises for my abs so I can have a flat stomach.”

Then, I crush all of their hopes and dreams by telling them, “Abs exercises don’t make your stomach flat”. I give them a minute to let it sink in and then I reveal the truth about abdominal exercises.

First, abdominal exercises are great for strengthening your abdominal muscles, THAT’S IT. One thousand crunches and any other twisting variation to the sit-up will not burn fat from your stomach. That’s not the way it works. Ab belts, ab machines, ab lounges, ab chair, any machine with the word “ab” in it are all expensive pieces of furniture that will never make your stomach flat. Ab workouts are still very important because a strong core is the key to overall strength, and it gives you the ability to do the real exercises that will help you burn fat and get a flat tummy. But ab workouts alone are not the answer to a belly fat. You see, you cannot manipulate your body into burning fat from a certain area of your body. So if you have fat around your arms, doing an arm workout for an hour does not burn fat from your arms.

Everyone’s body burns fat differently. Some people tend to lose weight in their face first, then arms, then stomach. Some people lose weight in their hips and thighs first, then their stomach. It’s just the genetic cards you’ve been dealt. But understand that it is definitely possible for you to lose fat from your stomach. You just have to stick to the proper blue-print and be consistent.

You have to understand that losing fat means you have to burn off the excess calories on your body. You need to do activities that burn as much as calories as possible. Crunches and sit-ups work only your abs (a rather small muscle group). You’re not burning a whole lot of calories when you focus only on your abs. Instead, you should be focusing on exercises that involve your bigger muscles groups, like your legs, butt and shoulders. You burn way more calories working those bigger muscles as opposed to your abs only. If anyone tells you that a certain ab exercises will make your stomach flat, they are lying to you or they don’t know better.

In addition to working your larger muscle groups, pay attention to your diet and always do some sort of cardio to burn off extra calories. Then, and only then, will you begin to see a decrease in your waistline.

And that my friends, is the ugly truth.

If you want to know the real reason you have excess stomach fat, then you have to read this article by Mike Geary.

Also, 5 tips for a flat stomach

Discover 10 easy ways you can get rid of your love handles and burn belly fat

Did you know? One study has shown that middle-aged people with desk jobs who do not exercise are twice as likely to have heart attacks as those who exercise regularly?

The Miracle Pill
What else will exercise do for you?
· Fights cancer!
Research has shown that exercise reduces the risk of colon cancer by speeding up the movement of food through the gastrointestinal tract thus rapidly removing carcinogens. Encouraging new data also shows that exercise may also reduce the risk of breast cancer, cancers of the reproductive organs in women and prostate cancer in men!

· Reverses Diabetes!
Exercise helps to decrease your blood sugar levels and is actually prescribed by doctors as an effective cure to Type 2 diabetes. You can reverse the effects of diabetes and never have to use a syringe again. Losing weight helps to reverse the effects of type 2 diabetes.

· Cures Depression!
In a study of clinically depressed women results show that subjects who exercised “had reliably greater increases in aerobic capacity and reliably greater decreases in depression” than did the other subjects. It was concluded that the findings provided clear evidence that “participation in a program of aerobic exercise is effective for reducing depression.”-
Influence of aerobic exercise on depression. McCann, I. Lisa; Holmes, David S.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol 46(5), May 1984, 1142-1147.

· Combats Osteoporosis!
Women who participate in regular weight bearing exercise may decrease the effects of osteoporosis, a degenerative bone disorder that affects many older women.

· Improves Sleep Quality!
Ever slept for 8 or more hours and still felt exhausted when you woke up? Exercise helps to improve your quality of sleep so you’ll require less sleep and feel much more energized in the morning! The reason? Deeper sleep!

· It can even help you quit smoking!
This is the actual quote, ” Research from the University of Exeter reveals for the first time, that changes in brain activity, triggered by physical exercise, may help reduce cigarette cravings…the study shows how exercise changes the way the brain processes information among smokers, thereby reducing their cravings for nicotine.” – Janse Van Rensburg et al. Acute exercise modulates cigarette cravings and brain activation in response to smoking-related images: an fMRI study. Psychopharmacology, 2008; DOI: 10.1007/s00213-008-1405-3

Need more motivation to change your habits? Well here are even more scientifically verified reasons to exercise:
§ Enlarges the arteries that supply blood to the heart

§ Decreases blood levels of triglycerides (fat).

§ Increases the strength of bones.

§ Causes the development of new blood vessels in the heart and other muscles.

§ Increases the thickness of cartilage which has a protective effect on the joints.

§ Increases muscle tissue, makes healthy bones and flexible joints.

§ Increased balanced and coordination which is especially important in older adults.

§ Increases the amount of blood that flows to the skin making it look healthier and feel
better.

§ Decreases total blood cholesterol

§ Decreased resting heart rate.

§ Increases lung capacity.

§ Increases your muscular endurance.

§ Improves the breakdown and use of fat.

§ Decreases your blood pressure.

§ Increases HDL (good) cholesterol.

§ Decreases the tendency of the blood to clot in the blood vessels. This is important
because small clots traveling in the blood are often the cause of heart attacks and strokes.
§ Increases your aerobic capacity (fitness level). This gives you the ability to go through each day with less relative energy expenditure. This enables a ‘fit’ person to have more energy left at the end of the day and to get more accomplished during the day with less fatigue.

§ Reduced stress: a major issue that will be discussed in much detail.

You don’t need to have a life threatening illness to want to change your life; most of us want to get in shape so we can look and feel better. But always keep in mind that exercising and eating sensibly goes beyond looking great; you are adding quality years to your life. Quality years refers to the number of years that you can still be self-sufficient, have energy and strength well into your seventies and eighties so you can play with your grandchildren or great grandchildren! Being ninety years old and practically bed-ridden is no way to spend your final years. Invest a little time now and you can be 90 years old and as active as you’ve ever been. So I will help you lose weight, sculpt, tone and become lean, but remember that your fitness goes beyond vanity and the benefits transcend your appearance.

So remember, losing weight to look better is fine; but keep the bigger picture in mind.

Learn some ways to get rid of love handles and lose belly fat.

– Leave it to me to make sex sound like a CLASS LECTURE.

The reason why it’s hard to say that sex is a good form of exercise is due to the DURATION factor. In other words, intercourse usually doesn’t last long enough to really burn a significant amount of calories. While there are clearly some sexual positions that involve more work than others, unless you can continue working in that position for at least 20 minutes, you’re probably burning about 50 calories per sexual encounter MAX.

If you have a fairly active sex life, you expect to burn about 200 calories a week if you have sex four times for at least 20 minutes.
That means you would have engage in 70 sessions of 20-minute sexual episodes to lose 1 pound. That’s 1400 minutes, or 23 hours of sex.

So from a cardiovascular perspective, you’re better off running.

HOWEVER, from a psychological and physiological perspective, sex is really beneficial because of its endorphin-producing effect. Endorphins are your body’s “feel good” juice! Sex triggers the release of endorphins which in turn helps your body to combat stress and fatigue. It’s great for your mental health and well-being.

Generally, the more sex you’re having, the happier you seem to be. (Makes sense!)

Studies have also shown that people who have more sex have better self-esteem and a more positive self image. I think hookers could use this in an ad campaign.

So that’s it in a nutshell!
- In terms of burning calories, not the best option. C-
-In terms of mental health, stress relief and better self-esteem, it’s one of the best things you can do. A+

Learn some tips to lose love handles and burn belly fat.