Would you like to shed belly fat and sculpt your abs without the workout equipment at home? From cranking endless crumbs out.
Would you like to shed belly fat and sculpt your abs without the workout equipment at home? From cranking endless crumbs out. It's not a successful way to exercise your heart, so you won't get closer to your goals for weight loss (or six-pack abs).
Yet you can improve your core workouts with the right approach, and set the stage to achieve impressive abs from your living room. Here Geoff Tripp, CSCS, Trainiac's accredited personal trainer and fitness manager, shares five clear techniques to help you whitewash your middle by burning more calories during your workouts at home.
1. Incorporate Compound Moves
Miss the smaller movements of isolation (think: crunches and sit-ups), since they don't consume as many calories as bigger compound movements do, says Tripp.
Yes, according to a June 2013 report in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, multi-joint body-weight movements like squats and deadlifts practice the abs way more effectively. That's because the compound movements allow you to simultaneously recruit through muscle groups like your heart.
"In most situations, as we add more movement and muscles, we raise our heart rate to a working level (50-90 percent) of one's exercise power, and the higher we drive that level, the more energy is required to work," says Tripp. To put it another way, the more time you consume, the more calories you torch.
For example, try a more difficult compound exercise like a plank with an alternating shoulder tap instead of doing an isometric plank hold for 30 seconds.
2. Reduce Your Resting Times
When you're performing a high-intensity exercise or a sequence of movements that target the same group of muscles, you need periods of rest for proper recovery. But, says Tripp, when you lift near full weights, you should shorten your rest times for calorie-burning benefits.
Reducing the gaps between movements and sets helps you to "get more work done in less time and hold your heart rate up to increase your energy needs and burn more calories," he says.
Tripp recommends performing a three to four ab-based workout circuit with contrasting patterns of motion. For instance, doing board holds, then V-ups, side plank holds, and finally, mountain climbers target your abs but also adjust your movement patterns so that you can almost remove rest periods between exercises, he says.
3. Do Supersets
Similar to shortening or eliminating rest times, supersets are a time-efficient, successful way to test the heart and smash calories — a pair of exercises done back-to-back, with little to no break in between.
"When you're at home and lack a way to improve external resistance [for example with weight machines], then your buddy is a higher volume rep," says Tripp. Essentially, the more calories you eat, the more reps you churn out.
"An example of a superset for your abs would be to smash a bicycle into an in-and-out smash," says Tripp.
4. Speed Up Resistance
"Probably, adding resistance is the best way to increase the [ab] flame," Tripp says. Think about it: When you carry a 10-pound dumbbell, you'll naturally work harder to do a Russian twist.
When you add load, you combine strength and conditioning to sustain the volume of your work which results in calorie burning, says Tripp. And you don't have to weigh heavily to see results. Tripp says that mild to moderate resistance plus high reps mild up the heart on fire and scorch those calories.
No dumbbells, right? No sweat anyway. Simple household objects such as canned goods, water bottles, or books can replace hand-held weights.
5. Mix It All Up
Another technique to maximize calorie burning during your ab training, says Tripp, is to integrate core practice onto your other strength days. At the beginning, center, or end of your lower-body or upper-body workouts, try to do a few ab-focused exercises. Then to keep the body guessing change the order.
Moreover, "a mix of core and some aerobic bursts goes a long way too because you have already raised your heart rate," says Tripp. That should break down the monotony of running workouts, too.
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