Can walking/hiking help flatten your stomach?

Question

I love to hike and walk for fitness and liesure, and my legs are in great shape. However, I'm packing some extra weight in my abs/love handle region, but I hate doing crunches and ab exercises. Can walking and hiking help with more than just my legs? I don't expect to tone my tummy when I don't work it out, but will burning calories through walking take away some of the fat in my tummy region?

Answer 1

Any type of cardiovascular fat burning exercise will help you to shed those unwanted pounds. When you exercise one body part, you don't just lose fat in that area, you lose it all over. Specific body part conditioning only helps to tone the muscles in those particular areas. Hiking and walking is actually a total body workout, try moving your arms while you do it to enhance the workout. If you want that 6 pack washboard tummy, then you will have to do those crunches, but if you are just looking to shed some pounds, then cardio will work. So the answer to your question is YES!

Answer 2

Absolutely. You cannot selectively burn fat - it burns however your body feels it should burn it. You can only selectively build muscle, i.e. through crunches. However, that muscle won't even selectively use the fat around your abs. Any kind of calorie burning activity will help you lose weight over your entire body. The more calories you burn, the more you lose. You can target one area to build muscle, but not to lose fat. So, it doesn't matter what exercise you do, as long as you burn more calories than you take in.

Answer 3

as far as i've heard yes. and try to hold in your stomach muscles as much as you can cuz then they will form into that shape and your stomach will be flatter. thats what i heard in my pe class last year and it also worked for a friend of mine.

Answer 4

SURE it help it's a cardio....go for it