Thread: 4 minute abs?

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Ok, if your like me, you've put a few beers down the hatch. I don't know if it's because I just turned 40 or I'm sick of looking at it but I need to do something about the gut. I've been looking at these AB lounges, but they look like toys. Has anyone ever bought and used one? Do they work?

Somehow I knew this was going no place fast!

C'mon Wrench, not a whole bunch of ponchy beer swillers are going to step up and admit they use one.... Seriously, I too got to that point and decided to do something about it. I got on the bike religiously and it did wonders for every part of my aging body. Worked up to a higher mile count every week and it dropped the gut, got the shoulders and arms going well and strengthened my back up to a point it doesn't bother me. Let's not mention the legs.

It sounds so easy! Well at least I can find some solace in knowing I'm not the only one out there. Thanks Nitro!!

Wrench!

I used to be a certified personal trainer and I can tell you, without a doubt, it doesn't work! You can't try and work out a particular area and burn fat from that area. Unfortunately, when you lose body fat it comes off of your entire body not just in certain areas. If you really want to lose your gut you're going to have to look at your eating habits. Do you eat breakfast? Many people don't and this just sets you up to gain weight. If you eat breakfast, what do you eat? Chicken Fried steak and eggs with Hash Browns and a short stack of pancakes is around 1,800 calories. A normal sized male should take in no more than 2,000 - 2,400 calories a day! Basically, you'd have to starve yourself after breakfast! What activity level are you at in your job? Do you do any sort of exercise program(Other than 12 oz. curls!)? PM me and I can help you!

John

Maybe just give up the beer and get out of the recliner???? I'm 56, still the same weight and waist size I was in high school.... Stay active, get some practical exercise. Most of the trick stuff advertised on tv is just a poor substitute for a proper diet and consistent exercise program....

Thanks for the replies! Don't get the wrong idea, For the most part I'm in pretty good shape and stay fairly active. Your both right about the diet and exercise in the last couple of weeks I have changed my eating habits and have dropped of few lbs already. As John was referring to, I'm trying to target the gut as thats my main area of concern. That ain't gonna happen huh? The ab Lounge is a waste of money?

Originally Posted by wrenchaholic

Thanks for the replies! Don't get the wrong idea, For the most part I'm in pretty good shape and stay fairly active. Your both right about the diet and exercise in the last couple of weeks I have changed my eating habits and have dropped of few lbs already. As John was referring to, I'm trying to target the gut as thats my main area of concern. That ain't gonna happen huh? The ab Lounge is a waste of money?

Just send the $19.95 or whatever they charge for it to me and you'll get the same effect but at least make me happy!

If you want to exercise don't join a gym at first! You'll stop going because you have this and that to do and you'll never go back! You'll go for a few weeks then life intrudes! Same will happen with the Ab Lounger! Pushups, situps and squats! Do these first! It's free and will test your will to stick to your program. If you don't, no money lost! Once you start to get into your routine then think about joining, or even better, buy a set of weights and start reading about strength training routines. Most important when exercising? Form! It's better to do 10 perfect pushups then 20 bad form ones! Start looking into doing a sport aside from working out to. Studies show that your workout sessions will be better and more productive if you do a sport alongside it. I guess once you start playing you want to get better so you start working out harder to get stronger, faster, etc. Did you play any sports in High school or do you have a sport that you like?
Exercise is hard for a reason! Your challenging your body to better itself and the only way to do this is to push it!
Quick tip: a few weeks into your Pushup/Situp/Squat routine try to lessen the time that you rest between sets. This is called circuit training and will not only make you stronger but it will strengthen your heart and your aerobic endurance!(Your wife will be the one that notices this most! )

Quickie Routine:

Concentrate on perfect form when doing these and you'll be done before you know it.

1st week -

10 pushups
10 Situps
10 Squats

Do this once every other day. Drink LOTS of water, Pretend your a camel!

2nd Week -

Same as first but do it 2 times instead of once!

3rd Week -

Do it 3 times.

4th week -

15 pushups
15 Situps
15 Squats

Repeat as before!

Do this until you reach 100 of each! By this time, you will have been researching different exercises and spending as much time with your shirt off as you can!

Don't forget! Eat more Dark, leafy greens, try and limit your red meat intake and drink LOTS of water!(Try not to drink soft drinks, drink water instead!)

Good Luck and stay the course!

John

*****EDIT*****

By the way, I am assuming that you are in good physical health and have no outstanding health problems. If you suspect anything like this you should have your doctor check you out first!

Hopefully Novanutcase will correct if this is a wrong way of strengthening abs, but it worked for me and I found it much easier than situps...
I used my (ex) boyfriends weights, a couple of round ones on a bar, so the bar can roll inside the middle holes. Then stand on your hands and knees, lean on the bar with the weights on with your hands and slowly let it roll forward, keeping your knees/legs in the same position on the floor. You will feel that to not end up falling flat on your face you'll need to use your stomach muscles to hold your body straight, then pull back again slowly.

Novanut is telling the situation correctly. I was never a trainer but was in pretty good shape once (currently have a keg rather than a six pack). You gain and lose weight from the core out. Meaning stomach is first place to gain and last place to loose, typically (on guys, women is different usually thighs). many people over train their stomachs thinking that 1. repetition (i.e. no. of situps) and 2. frequency (how often in a given period of time) equals results. Reality is that stomach muscles are the same as all other muscles. you should work them then give them the 48-72 hours of rest you would give your other muscle groups if you were training.

The only way to lose that fat over the muscles is diet modification (long term eating habit change, not short period "dieting") and/or excercise. I was down to about 12% once, you could see the top couple of abs but the rest had a small covering of fat (partially genetic, all the men in my family have trouble in that area) but if you used your finger you could easily feels the grooves under that layer.

If you are doing more than 80-100 reps for your stomach you are overworking, if you are doing it more than every 3rd day overworking. The reason I personally don't like any excercise for the stomach that involves rolling out and coming back as described is for me it puts too much strain on my back. crunches are very effective for the upper portion of the abs, difficulty can be increased by changing body angle or adding weight. for lower abs leg lifts or v-ups are effective.

Red

You're both right! Tex your exercise would certainly be effective but you do risk back injury by straining it. Especially when you get into your 3rd and 4th sets where you are tired! My favorite ab exercise is to use either a Roman Chair or a device they use in some gyms(I don't know the name!) that you use to strengthen your spinal erectors(The lowerback muscles that run up both sides of your spine!). Instead of laying face down, I turn around so that from my waist up there is nothing but 3 feet of air! I do reps in a circular motion so that I can hit both Oblique and abdominal muscles in one exercise.
I always tried to create programs that were heavy on compound exercises(Exercises that worked out more than one muscle!) so that my clients could get through their workouts as quickly but as effectively as possible!

Perfect Example(This is for the more experienced so if your a beginner be careful!):

Start standing straight up with your hands to your side.
Squat until your fingertips touch the ground.
Raise your hands in front of you and put them on the ground 12" in front of you.
Kick your feet out so that you are in the pushup position.
Do a pushup.
Pull your feet back underneath you.
Stand up.
Try to do it in smooth motions and not stop at any point in the rep.

If you work up to doing 50 of these consecutively you are in good shape. This exercise works out pretty much every major muscle group in your body in one exercise!

Hahahaha!!! You're all going to hate me when I get through with you!!!

John

Originally Posted by Dave Severson

Maybe just give up the beer and get out of the recliner???? I'm 56, still the same weight and waist size I was in high school.... Stay active, get some practical exercise. Most of the trick stuff advertised on tv is just a poor substitute for a proper diet and consistent exercise program....

Good for you Dave! It's good to hear about people that are able to maintain there health through the years! Keep in mind though that weight and waist size are not the only benchmarks for health! There are many people that are thin that keel over from heart disease because they didn't check their cholestorol levels and didn't realize they had such high counts!
Sound like you've got it pretty much covered though so, again, good for you!

John

Great!! There's a lot of really good info here.
You guys and gals have brought up a point about form and hurting your back. I have an old spinal injury in my lower back and everytime I do sit ups it will end up killing my back. I've used that ab chair at a friends house and it lets me do sit ups without the back pain. I've tried building up my push up total but the same thing happens. I do to many, get tired, my back sags and I end up hurting and taking time off

About the diet, John. Does 2 cups of coffee and a handful of trailmix count as breakfast? The only time I really eat breakfast is on the weekends when I make time to make it. I'm trying to cut down on the breads and cereal with out going nuts, and it doesn't leave a whole lot. Any thoughts?

Well I'm 53 years old and was up to 225, High blood preasure and Doc was on me about my blood sugar for the last couple years had me on blood preausre and cholestrol meds. New years weekend this year had some problems and had to go to E.R. and then go see Doc. He put me on diabetic pills and up'd the blood preasure meds. Took one of those diabetec pills and thought I was having a stroke..... Did some research and figured out I can fix this myself, threw those meds down the toilet, bought a blood preasure & blood sugar meter,Quit sugar & white bread,went back to my original low dose blood preasure meds. I ride the bicycle around the local high school track hard as I can go till I'm about ready to drop about twice a week(Cardio), Started eating a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast every morning, "hadn't ate breakfast since my school day's" , I Try not to intake any sugar unless it's natural such as friuts,and I watch the labels of stuff for high sugars and carbs. I have now lost my gut, am back down to a 34 waist Levi and weigh 195 same as in highschool, I have more energy,blood sugar is back down to normal,blood preasure is still higher than normal but nowhere near what it was in January. I'm sure I could probally fix the blood preasure totally if I'd quit smoking. Beer was never a problem as I can't stand the taste or smell of the stuff.

Nice going HWORREL! Keep at it! Smoking is a tough nut to crack! It probably does affect your high blood pressure so try working on that!(Yeah right! Easier said than done!!)

If you have lower back problems one of the things you can do to work out your abs is to sit in a chair(Sit up straight like your momma always told you! ) and just lean forward a little, curl your back a little and tense them as hard as you can and hold that for 10 seconds. Basically, what you want to do is to try and suck in your gut and try and touch your spine!
Try tilting your shoulders from side to side so that you can feel your obliques(Love handles) tense up. I like to do a little circular motion so I can hit them all in one exercise. Do it 10 times.
An exercise that can strengthen your lower back is called supermans. Basically, you lay, face down, on the floor with your arms stretched out in front of you(Like Superman flying through the air hence the name! ). Lift your legs and arms off the ground and hold for 10 seconds. This will strenghten your spinal erectors which are the muscles that run up your lower back next to your spine. This should help with your back pain. Don't overdo it though! Gradually work up to it if you have back problems!
When you do any of these exercises try and feel the muscle your trying to hit tense up when you do them. Don't just go through the motions because your just wasting your time! As I said before, exercising with the right form will yield you much better results faster!

Something else I haven't mentioned. Stretching! Try and stretch before you exercise. It'll keep you from getting hurt if you overdo it a little.

Sorry but your breakfast doesn't count! If you're going to commit to a diet change this has to be included.

Look at the trailmix your eating. Does it have little chocolate chips in it? Too much sugar! Trailmix is good but try and get it without the chocolate or yogurt chips. Just look at the ingredients when you're buying it and look for the one that has sugar as far down towards the end as you can.

Poor Man's Power Shake/Good Breakfast:

1 packet of sugar free Carnation Instant Breakfast
One Banana
One teaspoon of Peanut Butter
1 Glass of Non-Fat Milk or, if you're Lactose intolerant, Soy milk
Put it in a blender and whip it up!

If you want to add protein powder or whatever other supplement, nows the time to do it! I like to add Psyllium(Plantago Husks) as they keep me regular and studies have shown that they help in reducing cholestorol.

John