Posts Tagged ‘abs workout’

Today marks the end of the second week, meaning I am half way through the challenge. I have exercised for 10 days and about a total of 7.5 hours. My body feels much stronger and getting into my routine is getting easier each day. Though 10 days or 7.5 hours of exercise is a pretty short time to work out, I can feel the difference. However, it hasn’t been until the last couple of days that I could see any difference.

I have noticed that certain areas are starting to feel a little tighter and some of the fat in my midsection has started to disappear. Looking at the pictures I don’t notice too much of difference. Its partly because of the light. The picture I took today is much brighter and harder to see definition. I can tell that my lower abs are protruding a little more and that my side tend to curve just slightly more. If I look closely, I can see that my muscles seem to be getting a larger (especially the abs), but they are still mostly hidden under fat.

Next week I will focus on losing some of the fat weight. This should happen naturally as I am now burning more calories. I will try and speed up the process by adding some running and calisthenics to my workout routine.

One particular exercise I will do more next week is jumping squats. It works a lot of the body and is killer on the legs. Try a few and you will see exactly what I mean. It also gets the heart rate up very quickly. I did a set of 30 of these today and my legs were shaking coming back up the stairs. Give it a try.

In case you missed any of this weeks posts, you can find them here:

• Getting Fit in 30 Days: Day 8
• Getting Fit in 30 Days: Day 9
• Getting Fit in 30 Days: Day 10 & 11 Secret to Sit-ups

First off, I would like to apologize for not getting yesterdays post out. I was at a festival that ended much later than it was supposed to. It’s actually normal for things to start amazingly late here in Miyakojima, but I still haven’t gotten used to it. To be totally honest, there wasn’t much to post about. I did about a 10 minute warm up routine along with a 30 minute workout. Mostly focused on upper body strength. Sets of push-ups, pull-ups, and various sit-ups. Thanks to a tip I picked up in the workout program I am using, I am getting a much better workout out my my sit-ups.

We have all done sit-ups at some point in our life. In high school, I was able to do nearly 90 sit-ups in one minute due to my small size. Did I have a six pack? Far from it. I used my momentum and lightness to make my body go back and forth quickly. I had to be in decent shape to do that many per minute, but it really didn’t take much strength at all.

For the last several years I have been using a balance ball to do sit-ups. It definitely does a much better job than a regular sit-up, but after several days on the ball I usually stop getting the burn. So what’s the big secret?

It’s in making them as difficult as they can possibly be. The biggest difference for me has been to really squeeze my abs at the peak of the crunch and even hold it like that for a second or two. It makes your ab muscles contract much harder than they are used to. Our bodies tend to shy away from pain and so when we do a workout, the body tries to get through the hard parts as quickly as possible. A sit-up is much more effective done slowly.

This may not seem like a big deal, but it’s actually quite substantial. If I can get the maximum result out of each exercise, I can spend less time working out and get better results. I would much rather do 10 difficult sit-ups than 50-100 easy ones. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Diet

As I promised, my diet has not changed. Not to say that I am eating fast food everyday (I rarely eat fast food), but I am by no means counting calories or going without. In addition to the three meals I eat everyday, I generally tend to have snacks and deserts. Today I had ice cream before lunch and yesterday was pudding.

Now for anyone who is really serious about losing weight or getting in shape this isn’t the smartest thing to do. Keeping a very balanced diet and knowing how many calories you intake makes a lot of sense. The program I am using actually has full details on choosing a meal plan to best suit your workout. It would help you achieve your results quicker and make sure you are burning more calories than you are taking in. I have no idea. I could be taking in more than I burn and have no progress after 30 days. I guess we will see if there is any visible difference when I post pictures tomorrow.

The challenge was to see if I could get fit without following all the rules. If I can achieve it in 30 days, then someone who does a full workout and changes their diet should be able to do even better.