Friday, February 6, 2009

Lower Ab Exercises - Can You Beat The Trouble Spot?

By Robert Casewood

In the never-ending fight against fat, quite a few people turn to exercises designed to isolate the abdominal muscles thinking they're spot-reducing belly fat. Well, they can't really be blamed. Isolation exercises are effective in developing and toning-up the arms, chest or any other part of the body. Sadly, this doesn't hold true for getting six-pack abs.

Infomercials pushing the latest ab machine or fat-burning product on late night TV do nothing to correct the misconception that belly fat can be spot-reduced. Although most ab machines do isolate abdominal muscle tissue, it's not possible to really isolate the lower abs because the upper and lower abs are really just one big slab of muscle.

A large number of folks eager for sexy six pack abs fall prey to the infomercial machine thinking the upper and lower abs are different muscles. Isolating the abdominal muscles and developing them is of course, possible but to get lean, contour abs, the stubborn layer of belly fat has to be dealt with first.

Sure, we can do exercises that isolate our biceps, pectorals, even our lower ab muscles, but this only serves to strengthen and develop the muscle tissue. Doing exercises that target the muscles in a specific part of our body doesn't necessarily mean the fat tissue in that area is also being isolated.

Our anatomy is set-up so excess calories are stored as body fat and for some reason most of this is packed around the midsection, buttocks and thighs. This is the first place excess fat goes and this is the last place it leaves- that's the reason the midsection is the most troublesome spot to shape-up.

The key to that ever so elusive six-pack is simply to eliminate belly fat by lowering our body fat percentage to the optimum level. How low depends on how lean and how defined you want your abs (and body) to look.

Doing exercises that combine muscle-building resistance training and fat-busting cardio exercises that keep your heart rate just below the maximum percentage is the quickest way to get rid of the troublesome blubber hiding those six pack abs from public view.

Eating properly and living a healthy lifestyle can be good weapons in our battle against The Bulge. Doing fat-busting exercises and avoiding unnecessary calories from saturated fat and maintaining an eating schedule that keeps the body's metabolism high can do so much more than just doing lower ab exercises day in and day out. - 16004

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