One of the biggest weight and fitness goals that women have is to tone up their abs. Having a flat, toned and sexy stomach seems like a direct route to sexual wellness and wellbeing, and so women are often desperate to find that magic formula to help them achieve these.
Not all exercises lead to nicer abs, however, and you need to ensure that you are targeting your core muscles if you want to have that movie star and athlete style of flat, toned tummy.
First of all – you need to be doing cardio work and burning off fat. Coupled with a low fat, healthy diet, this is one of the keys to having nicer abs. You can do all the tummy work you like, but unless there is no fat at all on top of your abs, it’s going to be very hard to see the definition you’ve created in the muscle. Cardio needs to be serious, fat-burning exercise and your diet needs to be healthy and nutritious to reduce body fat as you build muscles.
The first exercise you should try is the belly button to the spine move. Wherever you are and whatever position you are in, be it lying down in bed, sitting in the bath or at your desk at work, you should practise pulling your belly button in towards the spine on a daily basis. This trains your tummy to be naturally pulled in in the middle. Just make sure that your spine is straight when you do the exercise, and then imagine that a cord is pulling your belly button backwards towards your spine.
Downward dog with a plank is also a move that you should perfect to improve your abs. Start by lying on the stomach and pulling up into a plank position, where you support your body on your elbows and toes, and then pull your bottom up towards the ceiling, whilst keeping your abs tight. Keep switching between plank and downward dog for tight and toned abs.