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Core Exercises
Jun. 11th, 2006 04:26 pmI just found Prevention's article, Breakthrough Belly Flattening Plan. Despite the title, most of the article is describing a nice core workout that you can do at home. (If you're not up on your exercise lingo, "core" refers to belly, side, and back muscles.)
The best thing about core workouts is that exercising your belly muscles helps you hold your back properly so that you're less likely to throw out your back. This really hurts and is even incapacitating and is more likely to happen to you as you age, and I'm hoping to do a lot of aging.
I also really like exercises you can do at home without any equipment because then it's easier to be self-reliant, which means you don't have to get to a gym or buy anything or hope for good weather, etc. Also you can do it in hotels if you have to travel all the time (hi, Indigo Rose!).
Now this workout does require one piece of equipment for one of the eight exercises: an exercise band. But that's cheap (I assume), light, and doesn't take much space, so it could be worse. And you might be able to make one out of rubber bands; I'll get back to you on that.
Not only did I print out this article for my health file, I actually tried the workout. I didn't do exactly quite as many reps as they say to, because I didn't want to (ow!) and you should never go overboard when you first try something new.
Also, for the exercise that required the exercise band, I just used, shall we say, an air band instead of a real band (like an air guitar).
The workout has all kinds of interesting activities, well explained (and illustrated). It's much more fun than the olden days in gym class where you are supposed to do fifty sit-ups. And more fun than aerobics classes where you do just sixteen sit-ups. Then eight more. Then eight more! Then we're almost done, just eight more. And four more! And now bring your knees into your chest. Doesn't that feel good? Okay, let's start over with sixteen sit-ups...
Yet, in spite of the workout not being at all horrible, afterwards my torso muscles were all rubbery, in a good way. I'm going to hang on to my printout of this workout and maybe even try doing it regularly.
And besides the workout, you get the added bonus of half the article being about how to get a flat belly. They don't quite come out and say that you have to lose enough weight that you no longer have any extra fat that you don't need because the belly is (one of) the body's favorite fat storage compartment(s). But they do tell you some interesting and useful things like that research has shown that if you suck in your belly while you're doing your crunches, you get twice the workout per crunch.
Deb-Bob says, "check it out!"
The best thing about core workouts is that exercising your belly muscles helps you hold your back properly so that you're less likely to throw out your back. This really hurts and is even incapacitating and is more likely to happen to you as you age, and I'm hoping to do a lot of aging.
I also really like exercises you can do at home without any equipment because then it's easier to be self-reliant, which means you don't have to get to a gym or buy anything or hope for good weather, etc. Also you can do it in hotels if you have to travel all the time (hi, Indigo Rose!).
Now this workout does require one piece of equipment for one of the eight exercises: an exercise band. But that's cheap (I assume), light, and doesn't take much space, so it could be worse. And you might be able to make one out of rubber bands; I'll get back to you on that.
Not only did I print out this article for my health file, I actually tried the workout. I didn't do exactly quite as many reps as they say to, because I didn't want to (ow!) and you should never go overboard when you first try something new.
Also, for the exercise that required the exercise band, I just used, shall we say, an air band instead of a real band (like an air guitar).
The workout has all kinds of interesting activities, well explained (and illustrated). It's much more fun than the olden days in gym class where you are supposed to do fifty sit-ups. And more fun than aerobics classes where you do just sixteen sit-ups. Then eight more. Then eight more! Then we're almost done, just eight more. And four more! And now bring your knees into your chest. Doesn't that feel good? Okay, let's start over with sixteen sit-ups...
Yet, in spite of the workout not being at all horrible, afterwards my torso muscles were all rubbery, in a good way. I'm going to hang on to my printout of this workout and maybe even try doing it regularly.
And besides the workout, you get the added bonus of half the article being about how to get a flat belly. They don't quite come out and say that you have to lose enough weight that you no longer have any extra fat that you don't need because the belly is (one of) the body's favorite fat storage compartment(s). But they do tell you some interesting and useful things like that research has shown that if you suck in your belly while you're doing your crunches, you get twice the workout per crunch.
Deb-Bob says, "check it out!"