Toning abs is a lot of people’s goal nowadays, but there is something you need to know. You can’t “tone” your abs! There’s no such thing. In reality, all you can do is either lose weight or develop (and build) your abs with exercise.
To get better looking and more defined abs we need to satisfy one, or preferably both, of those two goals. If you have been exercising, you may already have great abs underneath a layer of fat. If you have been working on losing fat and you have no abs, you need to do more effective exercises.
So, let’s take a look at each one and figure out the best course of action.
If you have a layer of fat on your abs, this will make them look less defined. Simply losing a few pounds will make your abs look better. Some people, of course, will need to lose more than others depending on your body type. Here’s the problem though. You can’t burn fat off of “just” your abs. Your body doesn’t work that way. I’ve mentioned this in other articles, but it is really important for you to understand so you don’t waste your time.
What we need to do is a full-body fat loss program. We want to eat better foods, and if that’s not enough, add some effective cardio exercises. I have some articles on good and bad foods to eat already, so I won’t go into that again. Here are some links to those articles. First, see my foods for fat loss tips article. Also, read our other articles on strategies for eating, junk food, or diets, and you should be all set. Oh, and read up on high fructose corn syrup.
Now, as far as exercise goes, what we don’t want is an ineffective workout like sit ups or crunches. We want exercises that challenge our ab muscles. It’s okay to build your ab muscles a little bit. They have to have a little bit of muscle or you wouldn’t be able to see them.
In a previous article, I have outlined some very effective ab exercises, so take a look at that for ideas. Also read about some other great exercises for abs. That should be enough to get you started. Just pick some exercises, try them out, and see what you like.
If you are not doing cardio and wish to try some, or if you don’t think your cardio is working, here is an article on effective cardio. Those cardio workouts will give you great abs.
Okay, so back to the topic at hand. As I said, we really can’t “tone” our abs because that has no real meaning. We can’t tone abs by doing light exercises because they have so little effect. Ab exercises just don’t burn much fat, so doing high reps is no good for toning abs either. Doing an exercise on a “ab machine” will give you no different results than any full body exercise that works the abs, so that’s out too.
All we can do is lose weight and hit our abs with effective exercises. That’s it. There’s nothing else to do. You don’t need some ab machine, fat-burning pill, or fancy equipment. Working abs lightly will not tone them. You should never be afraid of doing effective exercises in fear of making your abs too big because if you stop workout our, your abs will lose muscle and shrink anyway. Nothing is permanent, so give it a shot.
