Friday, February 13, 2009

Ab Machines - Reassessed

By Jose Loni

A reassessment of ab machines indicate that they are not effective for getting six pack abs. Many ab machines don't target the ab muscles directly and may even cause injuries. The best ways to get ripped abs are to rev up our metabolism and to have healthy eating habits.

Overall resistance training has shown to increase the body's metabolism. The increased lean body mass that results from resistance training, increases the muscle's activity, which utilizes the excess body fat to fuel its needs.

Some ab machines don't even target the ab muscles directly and trains the hip flexor muscles instead!

Watching what we eat is another factor that will help us achieve ripped abs. Avoiding processed foods, fatty foods, fast foods and sodas will help keep your diet balanced and help you control your caloric intake.

Lower total caloric intake by decreasing food portion sizes and eating 5-6 times a day. This helps stabilize energy levels and a lower total caloric intake, which allows the body to burn the food we eat as well as the excess body fat.

Controlling stress in our lives is another factor we need to consider. Stress has the ability to make our body store excess body fat in our belly area. The hormone Cortisol causes our body to react this way, so in order to keep that from happening we must decrease our stress levels.

Practicing yoga, deep breathing, tai chi and meditation can help manage stress and effectively decrease the storage of body fat in the abdominal area.

Ab machines are a waste of time and really have no effect on achieving ripped abs. To effectively get ripped abs, we must increase our overall metabolism through exercise, diet and decreasing stress in our lives. When we are able to control these factors, we can achieve ripped abs. - 15683

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