Flatten Your Abs Without Hurting Your Back

Which exercise can help without hurting?
By Martica Heaner, M.A., M.Ed., for MSN Health & Fitness

Q. I have a herniated disc. What is the best way to flatten and strengthen my upper and lower abdomen, but avoid straining my lower back?

A. A common misconception is that specific exercises will “flatten” the abdomen. Another common misconception is that different abdominal muscles need to be worked—upper vs. lower, for example. Here’s the truth:

If you wish to flatten your abdomen, this suggests that you have extra fat in the area. You can lie on your back and do zillions of ab crunches, V-sits, bicycle moves, reverse curls, curls on the ball, and so on—and not make a dent in the fat on your belly. Why? Because lying on your back and contracting your abdominal muscles burns very few calories. It burns about as many as lying on your back and watching TV (OK, maybe half a calorie per minute more).

To reduce body fat, you need to burn more calories—and a lot of them. This is best accomplished through a combination of eating fewer calories than you normally do, and burning up more calories with greater-than-normal amounts of exercise. The best calorie-burning activities are cardio or highly vigorous workouts such as walking, running, cycling, cardio machines, dancing, and vigorous, quick-paced heavy-weight-lifting circuit routines.

What’s deceptive about ab exercises is that they feel like something is happening. The more you lie on your back and pummel away at those muscles, the bigger the burn. But, don’t be fooled—that burn is not burning fat. It’s simply the result of the occlusion of blood flow and muscle fatigue from the repeated muscle contractions.

You can’t feel fat burning. When you walk for an hour, even at a slow pace, you are burning extra fat, but you can’t feel it being sizzled off your thighs or arms. When you eat less, you also burn extra fat. But again, you can’t feel this happening. What you might think is happening to your abs as you pound away at them with core exercise, is not. So what is happening? You’re strengthening the muscles, or developing increased muscle endurance. This is beneficial, as long as the type of ab training you do is not stressful to your back—especially if your back is already vulnerable from a previous injury or weakness.

To reduce your waistline, do more cardio. You can improve the strength and endurance of your core muscles by making sure that you have good posture during any cardio that you do. Stand up tall, lengthen your spine, and engage your abs—but don’t suck them in too deeply, because then you flex the lower back and increase the pressure on it.

I’ve written extensively about the best exercises for strengthening your lower back. Ab muscles work synergistically: When you work one, you work them all. Also, there are no separate upper and lower muscles. The rectus abdominis (your six-pack muscle), for example, is one long muscle that spans from your ribs to your pubis. When you do a reverse curl that targets the “lower” area, the upper area still contracts. When you do a curl and feel it more in the upper area, the lower area still contracts.

But these moves may not be the best way to help your spine. Instead, concentrate on exercises that stabilize, rather than mobilize (or move) your spine. Pushups, planks, and hands-and-knee ab-tightening exercises are best. Check out my columns Six-Pack Abs, As Seen On TV and Are Crunches The Wrong Move? And try these exercises in MSN’s Fit Zone: Build a Better Back Now and Flat, Sexy Abs in Five Moves.

Find all articles by Martica.

Do you have a fitness or weight-loss question for Martica? Send e-mail to experts@microsoft.com. Please include Ask Martica in the subject line.

Each of our experts responds to one question each week and the responses are posted on Mondays on MSN Health. We regret that we cannot provide a personalized response to every submission.

Martica is a Manhattan-based exercise physiologist and nutritionist and an award-winning fitness instructor. She has written for a variety of publications including Self, Health, Prevention, The New York Times and others. Martica is the author of seven books, including her latest, Cross-training for Dummies. (Read her full bio.)

The Best Flat Abs Exercises

By Andrew Hoffman

People all over the world desire to have flat abs that are both sleek and sexy. Studies have shown that the number one looked at body part at the beach is the stomach area, so why not be proud of what you have?

I am going give you a few tips on how you can get flat abs. I am also going to pass along some myths that keep floating around about the ab area. I will finish with a few of the top flat abs exercises.

Okay, first, you need to know that over 90% of people that want flat abs will not achieve their goal because what they are doing is wrong. The biggest part of getting flat abs is not doing countless crunches and sit-ups. These do help, but the main problem that is going on is the fat on the belly. That fat is hiding a beautiful core that you want everyone to see.

So, the first thing that you need to concentrate the most on is to get rid of the extra fat that is on your ab area. You may look awesome everywhere else, and even look good in your stomach area, but there is a little bit of fat there that is hiding the true beauty.

You need to be concentrating on an exercise and diet that targets the abdominal area, and that brings me to my first myth. People thing that all of the diet foods and foods that are low on carbs and sugars are good to lose stomach fat on......FALSE! These foods are full of artificial sweeteners, sugar alcohols, etc that are shown to increase the amount of fat on your belly, so you are fighting a losing battle when you eat this stuff.

Instead try to lower your carbs naturally, eat organic foods, and drink plenty of water each day. All of these will really help you to get the flat abs that you are after.

You also need to avoid any kind of pills that are supposed to make you get this wonderful body. Most of these drugs have not been FDA approved, and may not even contain anything that helps you at all. The safest thing to do is to avoid all of them at all costs.

Now, exercising your abs should not be limited to crunches and sit-ups. You need to start using an ab ball, doing air bike crunches, crunches with weights, leg pull-ups, etc if you really want to see some results.

So, if you want the top flay abs exercises to work for you, you really need to know Truth About Six Pack Abs. Know what 95% of people are doing wrong.

Flat Abs Exercises - Get the Truth Here

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrew_Hoffman

The Best Ab Workout: Hip Hop Abs

By Brett Maynard

When I first saw the info commercial for Hip Hop Abs it was late at night and I was eating a bag of microwave pop corn. It was around early springtime and I had been going on a not so healthy food binge and was starting to get annoyed by my eating habits and non physical lifestyle.

So when I saw the advertisement for Hip Hop Abs it made me somewhat excited because it was something that looked fun. You get to learn how to dance and grove, and all without doing a single sit-up or crunch. However, I was also skeptical because I've always tried many ways to get rid of my belly flab that I've had ever since I was around 12, but nothing ever seemed to really work, so I thought I would give it a try. I placed an order online and it got it within about two weeks.

The package came with three DVDs, a tape measure, a eating guide, and a guide that shows you the best ways to follow the program week by week. Two DVDs that they give you each have different programs that target certain areas of your mid section differently, and the last one is a five minute workout for on the run.

Before I even put on a single piece of workout attire I put the first DVD in and just watched most of it. There is a section on the first DVD that shows you how to 'tilt, tuck, and tighten' that is the basic movement to learning how to get a grove while giving your abs a core workout. After mimicking Shawn T. ( the instructor ) for a couple of times, it actually felt it working and was super easy.

So I ended up getting my running shoes on and moved my couch over a little so I would have some room for the workout. I also made sure I was alone for the time being, not knowing how I would look in the world of dance for the first time.

I'll be honest with you. The first time I did it, it felt really foreign and weird to me. I never went clubbing or dancing before this and I knew it showed. However, the next time I did it, I focused more on my 'own grove and style' like it says to do, and I found that it got more effective and easy. Plus, with Shawn T's entertaining advise guiding you along the way it becomes more and more engaging and fun.

After the first week I could tell that my stomach was shrinking a lot. By the first month and a half I lost about three inches, and that's a lot for me because my metabolism is so slow. I remember years before I would run miles and do hundreds of crunches in the months of the summer just to lose an inch or more, but it hardly ever would dramatically change the appearance of my stomach.

Hip hop Abs is an 'absolute engagement' program that combines an excellent cardiovascular workout with high impact muscle for effective targeting, and sculpting for the abs, hips, buns, and thighs.

Growing up as a very chubby kid when I was younger, I just thought it would always be with me and it would never change. That's why I was extremely excited when I was seeing results within the first month of this program.

I think the best thing about Hip Hop Abs is that you can do it for a while, get off of it and your weight will not come back. You can start up from where you left off and, as long as you don't go and pig out everyday, you will keep the weight off while having fun.

Brett M. is a student interested in humanities, media arts, writing, and film. He struggled with weight problems when he was younger.

You can visit Brett's page on Hip Hop Abs here.www.healthgenxyz.blogspot.com