Long and regular cardio provides the greatest effect for burning belly fat, rather than abdominal exercises. Essentially, vigorous aerobic exercise raises your metabolic rate, causing your body to burn more energy throughout the day—which helps you lose weight.
On the other hand, although exercise does not burn fat, it does increase muscle tone—various twists and turns help to flatten the stomach and sides, while squats and lunges strengthen the muscles of the buttocks and thighs. You can find a guide to fat burning workouts below.
How to burn belly fat?
When performing any exercises, both strength and cardio, fat is evenly utilized throughout the body. It is impossible to target specific areas like the stomach or sides for fat reduction without overall weight loss. Moreover, in many cases, the presence of internal fat is a consideration, necessitating cardio to burn it effectively.
First of all, the right training for fat burning is based on regularity – if you want to reduce the stomach, then you need to make it a habit to exercise 2-4 times a week for at least 30-45 minutes. Plus, in the fight against excess weight, control of the steps taken during the day also helps.
Separately, it is important to mention that fat burning workouts work exclusively in combination with nutrition – it is easier to control the intake of calories from food than trying to burn these calories with exercise. It is also important to note that fast carbohydrates stimulate the growth of fat on the abdomen, requiring them to be avoided.
Fat Burning – Theory
raining is not a way to spend calories or a method of burning fat instantly. They represent a mechanism for restructuring the metabolism – both to optimize the production of fat-burning hormones, and to normalize the levels of insulin and cortisol, which are responsible for gaining fat in the abdomen and sides.
The actual choice of exercises plays a much smaller role than the regularity, duration and intensity of fat burning training. First you need to normalize nutrition, then introduce cardio into the habit, and only then move on to exercises for the abdominal muscles.
Separately, it is important to remember that body fat is not the same. Visceral fat builds up inside the abdomen, pushing the belly forward, while subcutaneous fat sits above the muscles. Ultimately, the weight loss strategy will differ depending on how much fat a person has more.
Fat Burning Exercises
The burpee is the number one calorie burner and the ultimate fat-burning exercise. It combines elements of squats, planks, push-ups and jumps up. When performing Burpee, the work engages all muscle groups of the body, with the muscles of the abdomen, legs, and chest experiencing the maximum load.
Also, the fight against fat in the lower abdomen goes faster with the strengthening of the press. Although abdominal exercises do not burn a significant amount of energy, they develop the muscles of the core. Ultimately, it is beneficial for both speeding up the metabolism and improving the overall tone of the body.
How to pump the abdominal muscles correctly?
To pump the press correctly, both ordinary dynamic exercises (twisting, bicycle) and static ones are necessary – first of all, a vacuum of the abdomen and a bar. Such an approach to training will not only develop muscle strength, but also form a dense muscle ring encircling the body.
However, pumping the press always begins with getting rid of belly fat through diet and regular fat burning workouts. Following this, the muscle frame is strengthened, and the transverse abdominal muscles are worked out through static exercises, with dynamic exercises for the press performed only at the end.
Fat Burning Workouts
Below is a list of effective training strategies for burning belly fat. Once again, we are talking about training strategies, and not about the choice of individual exercises – neither twisting, nor plank, nor any other exercises can accurately drive problematic fat from the abdomen.
1. Circuit training
Circuit training is a set of 4-8 exercises for the entire muscle groups of the body, performed in several cycles. In total, individuals perform from 3 to 10 cycles of exercises for such a workout, taking a break of 1-3 minutes exclusively between blocks (“circles”). The exercises themselves follow one after the other, with a minimum break.
2. Interval running
Interval training involves alternating high, medium, and moderate intensity levels—which maximizes fat burning. Such a workout lasts only 15-20 minutes – and the achieved effect is comparable to an hour-long cardio in the usual mode.
3. Tabata training
Tabata is a high-intensity interval training method developed by Japanese professor Izumi Tabata. The training plan includes performing bodyweight exercises, such as running in place, in a mode of 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest, and the cycle is repeated 6 to 8 times.
4. Cardio on an empty stomach
One of the professional ways to speed up fat burning is to train early in the morning on an empty stomach – in this case, the level of glucose and insulin in the blood is at minimum levels, which allows you to maximize the process of burning belly fat.
Nutrition for fat burning
Controlling the glycemic index of foods and an abundance of fiber in the diet is the first and most important step in burning belly fat and further maintaining a stable body weight. No matter how active your fat-burning workouts are, over-eating will negate their effectiveness.
The no-carb keto diet is a professional tool for cutting down – however, to burn fat, not muscle, you need to alternate low-carb weeks with a complete rejection of carbohydrates. Otherwise, the body will go into catabolic mode.
simple diet for weight loss
To burn belly fat effectively, experts do not recommend sharply limiting the calorie content of the diet while simultaneously increasing the activity of fat-burning exercises. A rigid diet and a significant lack of calories will increase the level of the hunger hormone leptin and the stress hormone cortisol, provoking the accumulation of excess weight on the stomach.
Also a simple method of burning belly fat is the 16/8 diet , which consists of periodically abstaining from eating for 16 hours, followed by 8 hours when you can eat. According to the rules of the diet, giving up late dinner and early breakfast is necessary. In this case, most of the fasting period will be spent sleeping, and meals are distributed throughout the day.
If you want to burn belly fat, remember that fat burning workouts are not just a mechanism to get rid of excess calories, but a way to rebuild your metabolism. In addition, there are no exercises that help to accurately burn fat from the abdomen and sides – they can only improve muscle relief.