How do I get abs and get rid of love handles/obliques? What workouts are best?

Question

I know I have to lower body fat. I eat 5-6 small meals a day. I do 3 days of strength training and 3 days of 20 min cardio workouts. I also do ab workouts on the 3 days of strength training and 8 minute abs (youtube) on my cardio days. What can I do to eliminate my obliques/love handles and reveal my abs? Any info would help. I've went from 211 to 197 in the past 8 weeks.

Answer 1

Keep at it and vary your workouts.

Variety of exercise is the key I have found. For example..an exercise called Mountain Climbers.

Mountain climbers are done by starting in a pushup position
and then shuffling your feet in and out so that your knees are
moving in under your chest and then back out to starting
position. It sort of resembles climbing a mountain but flat on
the floor. If you want an advanced version, you can also shuffle your hands 8-10 inches forward and backward in
addition to the leg movements. This really makes it a full
body exercise and MUCH more difficult than standard mountain climbers.

After finishing each exercise, rest about 30 seconds before
starting the next exercise. Rest about 1-2 minutes after
completing each "tri-set" before repeating.

This will give you one of the best ab workouts you've ever had
without even doing any direct ab exercises. You'll see what I
mean after you try it!

Once you get away from the myth that a 1000 crunches and 500 situps a day is all you need to do for great abs, then amazing results can be seen.

There is a completely free 65 page ebook about exercise, nutrition, abs and stomaches in particular at http://www.projext.co.uk that you can download (no catch!) and it is excellent.

It helped me greatly.

Answer 2

The best recommendation I can give you is: Go to u-Tube.

u-tube is an awesome site that has thousands homebrew and professional videos on any topic. There are lots of videos dealing with workouts, how to get 6 pack abs, how to keep proper form, etc.

If you want to hear what I have to say on the topic, I'll say this. It's not the crunches or any other exercise that targets the abs that is most important. It's the diet, cardio exercise and DEVOTION that is most important.

There are people who don't do any crunches at all. In fact they don't do ANY exercise that targets their abs, yet their stomach will look very good and flat, simply because they are lean, healthy, and have a low percentage of body fat. This is what you have to focus on above all else. You dont have to starve yourself of stop eating the foods you love. Just try to eat less, but more often. If you used to eat 3 times a day for example, eat 4 times a day, but eat smaller meals. If you fee that you can and you must, cut down on fats - mostly butter, and fatty/fried meats and other foods. Less carbs too. Less sweets, cakes, bread, etc.

Check how devoted you are. For starters, try to do some form exercise every day for a month. If you can keep doing that, you might start watching exercise videos, lifting weights, or whatever else. But if you wont last a month and will start missing days, then there's really no point to watch exercise videos, read exercise books and waste money on equipment.
In my experience, diet, cardio(like jogging, brisk walking, basketball, tennis, etc), and DEVOTION, are all more important than actual crunches, exercise machines, etc.

Answer 3

It's a tough area to work on IMO but invest in a yoga/stability ball and do things like hip bridges, and reverse crunches. Most gyms also have a thing that sits at a 45 degree angle and allows you to kind of bend over and then straighten out, not sure what it's called, but do those sideways with weight/s.

Also you shouldn't necesarilly set your cardio to a time. A 20 minute jog starts to mean less as your body becomes more used to it or gets in better shape. You should do interval training which, for example, is like doing a 5 mintue warm up at a jog and then do 1 minute of high intesity and then cool down for a couple of minutes and then ramp back up for 1 mintue and so forth. Start off doing a few sets of that a few times a week and then add a set every couple of weeks or so.

Answer 4

Hi,

It sounds like you are on the right path. Congrats on your results so far.

If you are doing cardio, I would recommend "High Intensity Interval Training" vs. standard ole slow and steady(jogging, stairmaster, etc.) I have an article on "HIIT" at my blog, www.dennishardy.com. You may have to scroll back a month or so.

You have the right idea on number of meals. 5-6 is ideal...even one or two more. I eat every 2-3 hours that I'm awake. My metabolism always stays on ultra-high.

You can reach me from my blog. I'll be happy to answer any questions you have. As you can see...I practice what I preach :-)

Also, a buddy of mine, Mike Geary (a fitness trainer and contributing author to Muscle & Fitness Magazine), has an awesome abs program. It's rated one of the best on the internet. I've listed the web address below.


Best Wishes,

Dennis Hardy
Extreme Fitness Author & Addict

Answer 5

Hi,

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Good luck!

Answer 6

You need to increase your cardio in order to lose more body fat. Try 4 days of 30min cardio and 2 days strength training. Be patient it will take time. If you're a guy, fat naturally tends to accumulate in the abdominal region. Strength training is fine and you will improve your abs, but they will still be hidden by fat.

Answer 7

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