Belly fat is one of, if not the main reasons people want to lose weight. However, it is impossible only to lose weight in the midsection.
Therefore, you need to commit to a full workout program that also includes ab exercises, which helps increase your metabolism for overall fat burning throughout your body, including stubborn fat in the belly area.
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In the meantime, the more muscle you build in your abs through ab exercises, the more fat you burn, leading to the toned flat, toned abs of your dreams.
However, all ab exercises are not created equal, so here are the best exercises to include in your workout to lose belly fat.
What Exercises Should Be a Part of Your Workout to Lose Belly Fat?
Planks
Holding the plank pose activates your obliques and abs, which helps strengthen the core and improves your posture.
However, it also engages the other muscles of your body, including the glutes and shoulders, which helps burn fat all over compared to other ab exercises that only target the abs. Therefore, it is one of the best exercises to lose belly fat.
Try these plank variations from BarBend.
Mountain Climbers
Mountain climbers are nothing more than a moving plank exercise, which means it provides the same ab toning and fat-blasting benefits as planks but at a more intense pace.
Or, if you like, you could do burpees, which are another variation of moving plank exercises that also get your metabolism revved.
Russian Twists
A Russian twist is a type of sit-up that requires you to sit tall with your knees
bent, your feet off the floor, and your torso at a 45-degree angle as you twist your ribs from side to side.
In doing so, it works your obliques and gets your heart rate pumping, which helps burn fat on the sides and at the top of the belly.
It also helps build definition on both sides of the rectus abdominis for that letter v muscle shape at your pelvis.
Overhead and Lateral Medicine Ball Slams
Overhead medicine ball slams cause your muscles to work against gravity, which increases your breathing and thus your heart rate, thus helping you burn body fat.
It also engages and strengthens your core each time you lift the weighty ball and raise it over your head.
Meanwhile, lateral medicine ball slams provide many of the same benefits, but they also work the obliques for slimmer, toned side muscles.
Strength Training Exercises
Strength training exercises, including yoga and Pilates, require you to maintain a stable trunk during the moves, which causes the ab muscles to contract, even while working other muscle groups, which helps increase overall fat burn and a flatter belly.
In the end, remember, simply doing a bunch of ab exercises each day is not enough to lose belly fat. Instead, to do so, you must choose workout programs that engage your entire body for increased metabolism and overall fat burning, which also extends to the abs. You need to also stick to a low-calorie diet for the best results.
However, according to Legion Athletics, “if you’re stuck…on your current strength training program… and you’re sleeping enough, eating right, keeping stress under control, and you hit a plateau…then it’s time to change your training program.”
