Ab attack - Off Duty, Military Health and Fitness - Air Force Times

Ab attack

Open any fitness or men’s magazine and the odds are you good you’ll see a headline or three offering the latest secrets to six-pack abs.

If you really want the washboard look, forget the hype, say experts. It all comes down to two things: Burn and turn.

Peel off the belly with fat-burning cardio workouts that target the gut muscles with twist-and-turn exercises to make the stomach pop.

“The only way to get to the fat is to alter diet and increase aerobics,” says Ronald Raymond, an Army fitness expert. “There’s no such thing as spot reduction; it’s all or nothing.”

Unfortunately, belly blubber is often the last to go. “It’s one of the places of greatest resistance, especially with men,” Raymond says.

Bring the burn

To burn off the fat, Raymond recommends 30 to 60 minutes on a recumbent bike at least five days a week, while reducing carbs and upping proteins in your diet.

Army Sgt. 1st Class Jeff Herzog, once forever on the fat-boy program but now winning bodybuilding competitions and working as a certified trainer, says his best tactic for cutting fat is walking on a treadmill at a 15-degree incline at 2 to 3 miles per hour for 45 minutes a day.

He intentionally moderates the pace to keep his heart rate in that low-end sweet spot where the body tends to burn fat instead of lean muscle.

Twist and turn

Getting the stomach flat is one thing, but to get that shredded look, it’s time to go crunch crazy.

“My ab workout is crazy,” says Herzog, an instructor at the Fort Rucker, Ala., Noncommissioned OfficerCO Academy who blasts away at his gut with a barrage of reverse crunches, leg lifts, flutter kicks, rocking sit-ups — even hanging upside down for the torturous inverted sit-up.

Put a weight plate or a dumbbell on your chest to amp up the workout even more.

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