Everyone wants to work their stomach. The stomach is a very common area to carry a little excess weight so burning fat and toning up around the stomach is high on everyone’s hit list. But all your hard work and effort can be in vain if you don’t follow this one simple rule;

If you want a flat stomach you must be able to engage your stomach muscles during your entire workout. So whether you are doing cardio on the bike or rower, or doing squats or press-ups you are still working your core. YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE DOING A STOMACH EXERCISE TO WORK THE STOMACH MUSCLES!

I know the statement above may seem a little odd, but its true. You should be using your core muscles during your entire workout. In fact I would recommend only spending a small proportion of your workout doing ‘stomach specific’ exercises such as sit-ups.

So how do you do this? Imagine someone went to tap you on the stomach. What would you do? Hopefully you would brace your stomach muscles slightly. This is what you need to be doing throughout your workout. Don’t over strain and over-tense, just hold enough tension so all your core muscles are engaged. And make sure you keep your back flat and straight at all times no matter what your are doing.

Learn and perfect this and your stomach muscles will be working and burning fat during your entire workout. And what’s more, this will be happening whilst you are burning fat from others areas all at the same time.

Today’s Takeaway – So you don’t actually need to do many ‘stomach exercises’ to get a flat stomach. Engage your core throughout your workouts for flat stomach results.