We often read about the latest celebrity diet and workout that helped them get in shape for an upcoming role or shed those pounds quickly after having a baby. The latest celebrity workout hype has been caused by Scarlett Johansson and her preparation and weight loss for her recent role in Iron Man 2.
Scarlett Johansson has always been supporter of living a healthy lifestyle and claims of her losing 14 pounds for her role in Iron Man 2 seem a bit far fetched for someone as petite as her. However, the right training and diet will help anyone lose weight and get in shape for any role – whether on the movie set or on the beach. Read the full story
Its a New Year and its time to give you a new exercise to step up your workout and help you make this year YOUR year. Its another weight exercise for women who lift weights, to help you tighten and tone your body. This week’s exercise targets your lower body – ensuring that your legs will look great by the time you have to show them off!
This week’s flat stomach exercise for your flat stomach workout is one of my favorite for getting your heart rate pumping and the fat burning – the dumbbell step up.
The Step Up is a GREAT exercise to help you get tight, toned and sexy legs by working all of the major muscles in your lower body: quadriceps, hamstrings and glutes.
No matter your workout experience the step up is an exercise for all levels. If you are a beginner, start with a smaller step and no weight. As you become stronger, you can increase the weight or the height of the step to make the exercise more difficult. Another variation for this exercise, to increase its fat burning abilities is to time yourself. Instead of doing 10-12 reps, try taking a lower weight and doing the step-ups for a minute. See how many you can do in the minute, take a minute rest and repeat. This will have your heart rate pumping and the fat burning.
Everyone likes surprises – I know I do! In fact, your muscles need a bit of a surprise every once in a while in order to continue effective weight loss. Ladies, since you’re already lifting weights because the benefits of lifting weights for women are endless, you need to make sure that you keep your muscles surprised and working. You can change your routine completely or you can make minor changes to your current routine.
If you’re in the middle of a flat stomach workout, I have at least two ways to surprise your muscles that don’t require a whole routine change. Try one of these two methods to keep the fat burning and your muscles growing.
Slow Down – Changing the tempo of exercises helps to stimulate the muscles differently. Instead of just lifting the weight up and down – take a bit more time – push for a two count and bring the weight down for a four count. For example – when doing a chest press – count two when pushing the barbell up towards the ceiling and then count to four as you lower the weight back down. Or, if you are doing a squat count to four as you go down and two when you come back up. Slowing down the exercises makes your muscles work longer and therefore burn more fat.
Mix it Up with Cardio – Keeping your heart elevated helps you burn more fat. Doing cardio in between sets of weight exercises helps you burn even more fat calories during one workout as it keeps your heart rate up for a longer period of time. Instead of resting after a weight exercise, head to the treadmill for a one minute of sprint or if working out at home try jumping rope for 30 seconds or high knee lifts. This quick bout of cardio will help you burn even more fat and reach your flat stomach goals even faster.
So, next time you’re in the gym, try one of these two methods to keep your muscles guessing what you’re going to do and make sure that with every workout you are burning fat and building muscle. All to help you reach your flat stomach goals.
With all the flat stomach workout information you see online and in magazines it’s hard to figure out what’s the best and most effective way to create a flat stomach workout that will work and get you results. So I’m going to take the time right now to help you with some basic guidelines to follow to help you get the flat stomach you’ve always wanted. Interval Training
Stay away from your standard steady state cardio regimen, such as walking or jogging at one speed, as it will not get you optimal fat loss results to get a flat stomach. The most effective flat stomach cardio is Interval Training.
This means you are alternating a certain time period of high intensity work (or sprinting) with a slow intensity work (like a slow jog or walk). This type of interval training will help you burn fat faster and up to 48 hours after your workout.
The best part about this type of workout – you can use it on any cardio machine in the gym – the bike, Treadmill, Elliptical, even the Stair Climber.
Here is an example of what your interval training could look like:
In order to get flat abs, your workout needs to incorporate weights – not just cardio and crunches. A full body weight workout is the most effective and efficient type of workout for a flat stomach. This type of weight workout will keep your heart rate elevated, therefore, burning more fat throughout your workout.
Also, when you lift weights you build muscle. The more muscle you have, the more fat you burn, which will get you the flat stomach that you want.
Full body workouts allow you to train every muscle group, three times a week (with a day of rest between each workout). This type of training promotes muscle growth as well as fast fat burning, due to the increase in fat burning enzymes in your body. The more fat you burn the sooner you have the flat stomach you’ve always wanted.
The hardest part of any flat stomach workout is the diet. When you think of working out, you don’t really think about what you eat – you are most concerned with what you have to do at the gym. However, a flat stomach diet is a key element in getting the stomach of your dreams.
If you’re post workout attitude about eating sounds like this, “I just worked out so I can eat whatever I want” – will only make it harder for you to get a flat stomach. A flat stomach diet must consist of protein, healthy fats, and ‘good’ carbohydrates. Making sure you have the right mixture of these foods in your meals is important to getting a flat stomach.
Don’t have time for the gym or a long workout? Here are three quick moves you can do at home (if you have a stability ball) or right before you cardio session the gym. These three exercises will get your heart rate going and fat burning through your body all day long.
Saturday morning in the gym is usually one of my tougher workouts. I’m not coming from work, its not SUPER early – just wake up, eat and head to the gym. Plus, I usually don’t like to workout on Sundays, so I know I’ll have an extra day to recover.
After watching the Women’s Figure Competition from the Arnold Classic last night, I was SO motivated to KICK BUTT in the gym this morning – harder than usual. Those women are in tip top physical shape – they have trained for months for this opportunity. If they can do it and reach that level, I can do my workouts to reach my goal (I mentioned on Twitter last night I’m toying with the idea of doing a Figure competition – we’ll see).
So, with my new motivation I had a KILLER workout and wanted to share it with you….
1st (3 times about 1 min rest between sets)
20 Burpees
20 Jump Squats (on Machine 90lbs)
Wall Table with 15lbs hold for 1 Min
2nd (4 sets, rest about a minute between sets)
Supine Lat Pulldown (I increased my weight! WOOHOO! Went from 90lbs to 105!)
Dumbbell Shoulder Press
3rd (4 sets, resting about a minute between each set)
Dumbbell Chest Press
Sprint for 2 minutes on Treadmill after 1st and 3rd Set
4th (3 sets, resting a minute between each set)
Incline Dumbbell Row
Overhead DB Tricep Extension
5th (4 sets, dropping number of reps 20, 15, 12, 10)
Dumbbell Bicep Curl
6th (3 sets, 1 minute rest)
45lb Plate Chest Press (focus on Triceps)
Dumbbell Stiff Leg Deadlift
It was a long workout…but I kept the rest between each set minimal and that kept my heart pumping and the fat burning. I have SO much energy right now it’s awesome!
The most important thing after this type of workout is to make sure that you eat enough protein to help build your muscles. For breakfast I had a protein shake and an egg white omelet with spinach, salsa, and a little bit of cheese.
How was your workout today?
What motivates you?
I’m hungry again…only downside to having a fast metabolism!! If you have any questions about my workout – let me know!
If you want to lose weight effectively and efficiently, you need to boost your metabolism. Going to the gym regularly is important for weight loss, but spending hours on the treadmill is not going to help you reach your goals any time soon. To increase your weight loss you must increase your metabolism, or the rate at which your body burns calories. With a faster metabolism, your body will burn more calories and fat, leading to faster weight loss results. There are many factors that affect the speed of your metabolism, some things that you cannot change (your age, sex, genetics) and others that you can change. I have just five quick things you can do to increase your metabolism today.
1) Steady State Cardio – Get rid of it! Steady State cardio is not an efficient way to burn fat. Who has hours to waste running on the treadmill, to only burn fat for an hour after you finish your workout? If you want to do cardio, Interval Training will prove more effective to increase your metabolism. Read the full story
Note from Melissa – Personally, I’m not a fan of spending hours on the treadmill or elliptical. I don’t have time to run for an hour and try and burn minimal calories. I’ve found that the most effective cardio for weight loss is interval training, and only spending 20 minutes 3 or 4 days a week. What is interval training? This article does a great job explaining interval training and has some awesome research as to why it is better than steady state cardio.
Cardio is an over-rated way to burn belly fat, lose cellulite, and shrink your thighs. Research shows that interval training is a better way to burn belly fat, lose cellulite, and shrink your thighs.
If you want to lose belly fat, you should do lots of crunches. And if you want to shrink your thighs, you should reach for your ThighMaster. Right?
Wrong on both counts. Instead, you need interval training for fat burning.
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