Exercise Tips!!

Anyone know of any unique and helpful exercises.? i would really like to concentrate on my abs and stomach area along with my legs. Please letme know! Thank you!

The 30 day shred video by Jillian Michaels , helped me out majorly in those areas. like $10 at walmart.

When you say you want to 'concentrate' on those two areas, does that mean you want to build muscle there or lose fat from there?

Thank you! That really helps me out a lot. Being since im new to this. I really appreciate it. 

Does it make sense to say, i would want to do both lose fat and gain muscle.??? Don't know, if that helps you out much.

Original Post by agarza22:

Does it make sense to say, i would want to do both lose fat and gain muscle.??? Don't know, if that helps you out much.

 There is no exercise that will cause you to lose fat in any particular area, all the sit-ups and crunches in the world won't cause you to lose fat on your stomach.

Squats, deadlifts, lunges and step ups are the big exercises for building leg muscles (and they all hit the abs/lower back pretty well too).

Flog is right...in spite of infomercials galore to the contrary, you cannot "spot lose" weight.  It goes onto your body wherever it wants and comes off wherever it wants.  Lose enough weight/body fat and you will lose your belly fat eventually.  Tightening and toning your abs will help your belly look better too.  An exercise ball, one of those large inflatable jobs, can be used in dozens of ways to exercise your abs.  It's cheap, can be used at home and there's endless varieties of stuff to do with it....and it works..

Yup, the most important exercise for any body part - but especially for abs and legs - is fork put-downs and table push-aways.

 Exercises has a million and one health benefits, but what it takes you one hour on the elliptical to burn it takes one Mars Bar or Starbucks Frappucino'o'death to undo so without diet absolutely nothing worth noticing happens when you exercise.

Planks, squats, lunges, pull-up's, sit-up's, push-up's, sprinting. Diet is key in flat ab's you can do all of the ab work you want but without a proper diet you will not see the results you want.

What type of proper diet will give you the quickest results for your abs?  That's my last part to go, my legs are the first.  I consider myself an apple shape.  My sister is the opposite of me, she is a pear shape.

Thanks.

a healthy, clean, well balanced diet is key, all the excersize in the world will do nothing if your eating processed garbage, and chemically enhanced "food"

think back a good couple hundred years ago... were people overweight? obese? highly unlikely, because their food was clean and natural and eaten properly, and when hungry.. people also had to WORK for their food (hunt/gather/farm/etc)

now look at today, a huge portion of the population is overweight/obese, because our "food" is now laden with excess sugars/fats/chemicals/toxins and stripped from its natural wholesome goodness... this 'access' crap causes people to become basically addicted to it, and rely on "good" taste rather then how full they actually are... and now food is everywhere, and the "working for it" is out of the question.... WE'VE BECOME LAZY

to have that lean, toned body that you wish for you need a proper diet(good carbs, good fats, quality protein, vitamins and minerals), full of whole foods like fruits/veg, lean protein, whole grains, and lots of water to flush out toxins and keep your body functioning properly.

in short a large portion of your efforts are going to come from your eating... as for excersize, you are going to need some kind of cardio to BURN FAT.. you can do millions of situps/crunches and not see results, why? because these excersizes work the muscle, not take away the layer of fat that sits on top of it. You may have rock hard six pack abbs, but you wouldn't know it until you rid yourself of excess fatty tissue... you might even build the muscle underneath and end up making your tummy look bigger, unless the fat is removed!

and sit ups and crunches are not going to do it all either.. your going to have to work all the muscles, twists, bends, crunches, reverse crunches, etc. do a little reading up on different abb excersizes and keep your body guessing.

and remember to FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS... you could do 500 sit ups and not "feel the burn".. because your not doing it right!! you should ONLY have to do about 15-25 reps of an abb excersize to feel your muscles working. So focus on the QUALITY, not quantity of your excersises.

keep in mind too though, that your body has its own shape that it likes to be, you can't fix that.. what you can to is slim and tone, but never change the shape... no matter how much weight you lose or gain, you will be a smaller or bigger version of your former self.. (ie: even if you take away all the fat from your midsection, you may never have a waist smaller then 27inches if your rib cage vs hips dont allow it)

...wow i'm writing a lot..

k thighs: this is a tricky one....hmm still trying to figure this one out myself, as they are my trouble area... with cardio and diet I can slim them down, but I will always have a pear shape *sigh*... right now i'm working in some lunges/leg lifts/squats but i fear that may build muscle and make my legs look bigger.. im more concerned with losing some of the weight, and making them sleak and toned...  i know i can only do so much for this area, so the best i can do is just work with my body and make it the best i can make it

hope this helps

Lookup clean eating. Clean/balanced eating is key.

Whole grain products. Pasta, rice, bread. It needs to be whole.

Lowfat dairy.

Lean meats/fish/proteins.

Fresh fruits and veggies.

Drink plenty of water.

Stay away from artificial sweeteners, processed foods, fried foods, fast food, junk food, simple carbs, artificial foods. Don't get your calories from drinks. Stay away from pop. Diet is crap too.

The 30 Day Shred is amazing!!!!

If you actually follow it, the weight comes off so fast!!!

if you want muscle tone, pilates is the ultimate workout!  i really felt a difference just from doing a few exercises.

 Pilates is a derivative of gymnastics floor work and yoga, and has a limited results space and potential.

 It works, for some very small values of work and can be a good intro to exercise if you're not used to it, but it can in no way live up the marketing hype. Few things can though, once they've been through the Gaiam marketing department and turned into a clone of the last workout video they sold 1.5 million of regardless of what it says on the label. Studio pilates with a real instructor as opposed to the Gaiam DVDs has more potential to help you through hands-on work with an instructor who should in theory be able to see and help you train to correct any strength imbalance issues.

 The downside is that since Pilates is bodyweight-and-modified-gymnastics-gear only there's no scalability in the resistance and you'll have a hard time getting the progressive overload that's so crucial to long-term effectiveness of a workout.