Fat Loss 4 Idiots Secret

Monday, April 20, 2009

6 Pack Abs - Competing Theories

By Dan Solaris

Time and again, expert studies have shown that total body cardiovascular exercises are most effective in eliminating excess body fat. There's no way to bring out the striations and contours of the abdominal muscles to show a 6 pack unless the belly fat is reduced enough.

It's a well-known fact that a combination of body-building exercises and cardiovascular workouts are the most effective in developing the muscles and facilitating fat loss at the same time. Since there are two types of cardio exercises, the question here is which type is the best for getting 6 pack abs?

Cardiovascular exercises can be done at low intensity and high intensity. The latter is more popular as a method of losing fat and getting 6 pack abs because first, it's easier to do. The physical effort in doing low-intensity cardio exercises can actually be done by novice exercisers and people that are extremely overweight.

Low intensity cardio exercises have also been discovered to burn caloric energy from fat stores as opposed to high intensity cardiovascular workouts that keep the heart at 90% of the maximum. The latter burns more calories obviously, but some of it comes from glycogen already.

The body absorbs carbohydrates from the food we eat and stores it in muscle tissue as glycogen. Supporters of the low-intensity theory say working-out too intensely can cause the loss of muscle tissue because some glycogen is used for energy when doing hard workouts.

Doing cardiovascular at high intensity however burns way more calories in less time than cardio exercise at low intensities. An hour's worth of calories burned doing the latter can be eliminated in just 10-20 minutes intense exercise. Some also argue that the lost carbohydrates can be replenished by eating the right post-workout food.

Some experts argue that although they're more difficult to do, high intensity exercises in fact build more muscle tissue because of the hard effort. They also kick the metabolism up to high levels and keep it going hours after a person has stopped working-out.

Another disadvantage of low-intensity exercises is it takes 10 minutes before the heart rate goes high enough to be able to start burning calories. It's clear that choosing between the two cardio 'schools of thought' depends on how much time a person can allot to exercising each day to get 6 pack abs and how developed his cardiovascular system is. - 17274

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