Six Pack Abs and Love Handles – This Weeks Theme

I think that the six pack and love handles seems to be the most common concern for people when it comes to fitness and physical appearance. We have gotten a lot of requests to address these problem areas, so this week should be interesting. I am going to post 3 new workouts this week that will target your abs and muffin tops and I will be also posting tips for your workouts and diet.
The major factor in getting a six pack will be  your diet. You can’t expect to see any results unless your body fat percentage is at the lower end of what is average. You can have the most muscular abs in the world, but you still won’t be able to see them if they are covered in fat. This means that you have to lose the fat by eating less calories then you expend.
That said, it is not enough just to get skinny. You have to develop your abs while getting your body fat levels lower. If you just cut down on your portions, then you will lose weight, but that doesn’t mean that you will lose only fat. It’s going to be also the lean muscles. So how do you loose fat without actually loosing the lean muscles at the same time? The answer is simple, through intensive and consistent exercise. Cardio is great for burning calories, but too much cardio will lead to the loss of your lean muscles. We have to focus on building muscles that will burn the fat for us. That’s why we will be doing full body workouts that are a combination of strength training and high intensity cardio. In order to burn fat and build muscles you don’t need to be spending hours with your workouts or cardio. What is important is the intensity and that’s why we do the time challenges. It makes you work harder.
I know that it sounds almost like a fairy tail tale that you don’t need to spend hours on a treadmill and you can have your workout done in less then 30 minutes instead, but let me give you an example. Try to compare the body of a marathon runner with a sprinter. Which one of them has more lean muscle and outstanding muscle tone? The sprinter right? These guys do high intensity cardio workouts most of the time in order to be super fast and super ripped.
The next time I will be talking more specifically about which exercises are best for abs, but for now just trust me and try the workout ;)
In this workout you will be doing 8 rounds of the following exercises:
1. Prisoner Squat with Knee up – 20 reps
2. Santana Push Ups – 10 reps
3. Jump Rope – 100 skips as fast as you can
4. Plank Knee tucks – 20 reps
My time for this workout was 24 minutes and 54 seconds. I was using my pink Gymboss Interval Timer for keeping track of the time.