Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Ab Machines-The Truth

By Jose Loni

Ab machines waste time. These machines will help you strengthen your abdominals, but to achieve ripped abs, ab machines are a waste of time. Increasing your overall metabolism through resistance training, controlling your diet and decreasing stress in one's life will help you achieve your ripped abs.

Resistance training increases the body's metabolism as a result of increased muscle mass. The increased muscle mass also increases metabolic activity, which allows our body to utilize excess fat to fuel our activities.

Exercises that incorporate interval training have shown to increase the body's metabolism. The anaerobic component of the exercises allow the body to increase its metabolic activity, which thereby increases the use of excess body fat as fuel for the body. The body also continues to burn fat well after the exercise activity has ended.

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.

Managing stress is another factor towards acquiring ripped abs. Stress can make the body store fat in the belly area due to Cortisol, a hormone which is produced during stressful times. Thus, controlling stress levels will prevent our body from reacting this way.

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

The reassessment of ab machines indicate clearly that they are not effective and can even be harmful. To get six pack abs, we need to discipline ourselves to exercise regularly and to practice healthy eating habits. - 16752

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