Is tae kwon do good for abs and waistline?

Question

Myself and 4-5 other girls started a workout we've walked 2 weeks,now we're interested in tae kwon do.Will this be benifitial?

Answer 1

Tae Kwon Do is excellent. Go for it.

Here are some other tips relevant to abs, and general fitness from my 360 Blog of September 10:

Don't target more than about 2 lbs per week. If you try to lose faster, your body will go into "starvation mode" and get very stingy about burning calories while at the same time very efficient about storing any calories that you do provide. And it will make you feel awful.

There is no site specific way of losing fat... the old myth about working your abs to burn belly fat isn't true. To get rid of love handles, you need to lose overall fat. That happens with exercise and watching your diet. More on that below.

The most effective way to lose fat is aerobic exercise in the "moderate" fat-burning range, ideally first thing in the morning before you eat. When you wake your body is ready to burn fat and your levels of growth hormone are highest at that time. Later in the day it can take up to 30 minutes just to put your body into a fat-burning mode.

Another overlooked way to burn fat is by lifting weights. Skeletal muscle has very high caloric needs... almost twice that of adipose (fat) tissue. Put on a little muscle and you will burn calories all day even at rest. Be aware that skeletal muscle weighs more, so with this approach you may see your weight increasing while your body fat is melting away. Not realizing this often stresses folks who think they should be losing weight as a measure of fitness. Forget the scale, look in the mirror and you will be happy.

To lose a pound of fat, you need to eliminate about 3500 calories. You can do this by burning more with exercise or by modifying your diet to reduce intake. If you do a Google search on say, "swimming calories" you will quickly find a website with tables of calories burned for a given exercise. You can use such lists to estimate how many calories you are burning up with your routine.

For diet, keep a diary for a couple of weeks counting calories, grams of protein, and grams of fat intake. It is easy with online sources of nutritional information (type the name of the food and calories into the Google search engine) and packaging labels. That will let you quickly figure out where the fat is coming from in your diet.

Fat gives you 9 calories per gram. So take the number of grams of fat, multiply by 9, then calculate what percentage the fat calories are of your total daily calories. Restricting the calories from fat to about 20% of your total intake is ideal for a maintenance diet... that isn't overly restrictive. Of note, you need some fat in your diet. For instance, the body uses fat to produce hormones. Once you have a picture of how to modify your diet, you can drop the diary and just go back to it occasionally if you are wanting to tweek things further.

There is a subset of questions that goes further and asks about "How to get a six-pack?" The answer is the same. Six-packs are 20% abdominal exercise and 80% diet. There is one caveat... abdominal muscles will form in the position that you exercise them, so be certain to pull them tightly toward your spine while doing crunches, etc. Also, during most lifting, the "core is active" which means that you should be stabilizing with contracted abs then too. Fail to do this and the abs will form, but bulging outward and the result is not attractive.

If you are trying to build muscle as a way to lose fat, then you may need to increase total calories and specifically your protein intake. I target about 0.8 g of protein per pound of body weight each day when actively building. That is far more protein than most people need in their diets.


Aloha

Answer 2

It could help. My ideas? Try to do 200 minutes of cardio a week. Remember fat does not turn into muscle, so you need to lose your fat while putting on muscle. Work hard, but don't over 60 minutes at a time. Do planks and other abs exercises on alternate days.

On training days, do 5-10 minutes of cardio to warm up, then do your weight training. Do 30 to 60 minutes more of cardio, then go home.

The best time to eat is just after your workout within an hour when your metabolism is raging. For your muscles, incorporate some isolated soy protein or whey protein. Whey is more potent but the soy tastes better!

Don't look at your scale as the be all and end all, but get a measuring tape to check your progress, and that will show more tangible results.

Read magazines like Shape, Womens Fitness, Fitness, etc to get tips and to stay motivated.

Good luck and stick at it. This plan has lost me 20 lbs in 12 weeks so far, just go for it!

Answer 3

Any exercise routine that works on strengthening your core muscles (which tae kwon do will do) while also burning calories will be good for your abs and waistline, as well as the rest of your body.

Answer 4

Tae Kwon do focuses mainly on the arms and legs, however you do get some abdominal exercises.

If you really want those abs and waistline, just hit the crunches.

Answer 5

All of the TKD movements are applicable life protection techniques. Most TKD people don't know this. I know this because those Kata originated in Okinawa from Shuri Te, and they are used by the Okinawans very effectively... and I do a few Shuri Te kata. There are a few modifications but it's the same concept. You kids don't know the truth in martial arts. Ymarsakar - muscle has nothing to do with proper technique, Bunkai and Oyo. The purpose of Martial Arts is to give the person who would normally not stand a chance against a larger, stronger opponent, the ability to protect his/her life equally. A woman of 5'2" can not match muscle strength with a man of 6'. Heck, even a man of the same height and stature would have difficulties. The Techniques of Martial Arts rely on Body Mechanics for effectiveness - not muscle. That video illustrates the use of Body Mechanics. Your explanation does not.

Answer 6

Yes. Every time you are kicking you are working your abs without even really noticing - same with every time you are punching. You can also do concentrated abdominal exercise in addition to the tae kwon do.

Answer 7

No. Tae Kwon Do is truthfully the worst form of martial arts that anyone could undertake. I know because I am almost a black belt in Shotokan karate, and if you all can get into karate of any form do it! Tai Chi is also an excellent form of excercise.

Answer 8

Ty bo works trust me I had a kick a@s body after I did tybo. I had a little six pack and my waistline was nice along with every other part of my body. I did it almost everyday though.

Answer 9

Not sure read some useful tips on how to get abs and more on this site to help you with it

Answer 10

it will surely do wonders for ur waisteline and abs, certain movements on th floor give u a thorough abs and leg workout.