Crunches are among the best
exercises, since they
involve a large array of muscles, both abdominal and lower back ones. Try
a vertical leg crunch at first: do your abdominal crunches while holding
your legs pointing upwards. By curling your torso up and reaching with
your hands towards the tips of your toes, you give your abs an excellent
workout. Repeating this motion several times is difficult and you will
need to practice the exercise for a while before you feel like you are
beginning to master it. Another option would be to do the regular crunches
in a very strict manner: hold your back stuck to the ground and contract
your muscles as you do the crunch. There is a huge difference between
simply performing the crunch motion like a robot would and actually
getting involved in each individual crunch by contracting the ab muscles
each and every time.
Exercising is difficult, but patience goes a long way.
Do not expect overnight results, or you will quickly get discouraged and
fall back into apathy. One of the hardest things about doing ab exercises
is that you run short of breath. Loosing breath tires the body instantly,
and, basically, the intensity and positive effects of your workout depend
a lot on the way you breathe.
Yoga is probably the best answer to breathing
techniques. You don’t have to follow a strict yoga path in order to get
positive results: just try a few of the asanas – special yoga techniques
and poses – and see what that does to your breathing. Deep breathing can
get more oxygen in your blood system, thus allowing you to workout more
intensely and for a longer period, without losing breath or getting very
tired.
Getting those love handles off and developing a nice,
firm abdominal area is the quest of many, women and men alike. However,
the biggest problem that comes into play with physical exercises is that
they take a long time to produce results and they are difficult to
perform. Because of these two obstacles, many begin their training program
only to drop it after a week or a month, justifying their decision on lack
of results or increased difficulty. As with most physical changes, taking
fat of and developing muscles takes time, and there is no shortcut to
doing it. Your best allies are perseverance and maybe a friend who will
inspire you with his or her determination to stick with the exercise
program.
