Unfortunately, it doesn’t take much to cover up a good looking set of abs. Five to 10 pounds of fat is more than enough to hide a perfectly sculpted six-pack. So if you want to see the abs you have been working so hard on, you will have to get rid of the fat that’s covering them. That’s where these three machines come in.
It may come as a shock, but these three machines have the potential to shape your midsection more than any abdominal machine you can find in a gym.
1. Food Scale
If you are working hard to sculpt your abs in the gym, you need to work even harder to uncover them in the kitchen. Otherwise no one will ever see the sculpted muscle hiding beneath your skin. The only way to do this is to reduce body fat, and that begins with diet.
Most people have excess body fat simply because they don’t realize how much they are actually eating. People tend to rely on guesswork instead of hard facts, eyeballing amounts and estimating portion sizes. Guesswork rarely works.
As a result, people give up on their dream of getting sculpted abs because they aren’t getting the results they feel they deserve. Even if they are doing 500 crunches a day, it’s rarely enough to compete with what you eat.
Weighing and measuring food is the best way to monitor your caloric intake in order to reduce body fat and reveal those pretty abdominals that have been hiding for so long.
2. Elliptical
Although diet is definitely the most important step in reducing body fat, you can ramp up results by increasing cardiovascular exercise. There are several fantastic machines that are extremely effective in burning fat including the elliptical, treadmill, stair climber, and rower.
Exercises incorporating rotational upper body movement are even better for tightening the midsection. That is why the elliptical cross trainer with swinging arm handles tops my list. Other exercises that trim the waistline include running and kickboxing. The key to choosing the best exercises for sculpting abs is choosing the exercise that incorporates upper body movement and burns the most calories.
Increasing regular cardiovascular exercise can help boost your daily caloric deficit, which will also improve results.
3. Weight Scale
I know what you’re thinking. You are probably wondering how stepping on a scale can help uncover your abs. It’s called accountability—and more people need it.
For some reason, people tend to justify why they aren’t getting results. They will often talk themselves into believing they are doing everything right even if they aren’t getting the results they initially wanted. If you are working really hard in the gym, you can have a tendency to feel like you deserve to eat more. This false sense of achievement can give you the approval you need to cheat on your diet, ultimately sabotaging your hard work.
The scale helps hold you accountable. Initially, you can gain muscle and lose fat without it being reflected on the scale, but eventually the scale will be an accurate measurement of weight loss. Unless you only need to lose a couple of pounds, most people will need regular weigh-ins to keep them from falling off the wagon.
There are dozens of exercises you can do for your abs, but none of them will truly pay off unless you master fat loss—and these three machines are sure to help you reach your goals.