Hi, my name is Desiree Winkel, owner and founder of Fitness Coaching. I’ve been working for years now with Martijn Steffens, a manual therapist who runs his office in the same studio as mine. We work with clients, who are in pain, need to exercise and want to get healthy.
My clients often tell me they want a tummy like mine! I have no idea if a man likes the “six-pack” on a woman as much as the woman likes it on her; maybe men find it “a little too much.” To be honest, and I can only speak for myself, I don’t care what men think. I am me and I like the way I look. I work hard for it and live for it most of the time. That said, I will now try to explain how you get and maintain them.
Let’s start with a little explanation of how abdominals work, where they are placed in the body and how to train them. When it comes to ab flab, there are two ways to tackle the problem: Either burn blubber or suck it in with stronger muscles. Even if you don't lose fat, you can improve your waistline by toning your muscles. Trust me I know and my clients know.
The “problem” with working on the abs is that they're actually hard to fatigue because they work all day long to keep you upright. But you don't come home after a long day at the office with a tummy ache from all that typing. So how busy could they really be?
"When we're seated, our back muscles and spine help keep us upright and the abs are in a slack position, especially if you slouch. Contracting your abs is the only way to activate them as you sit. The external obliques are the V-shaped muscles running diagonally down your sides that, along with the internal obliques underneath them, help you rotate your spine. Meanwhile, the rectus abdominis is the straight-down-the-centre muscle which, yes, can make you appear to have a six-pack if you have a seemingly single-digit body-fat percentage. The transversus abdominis muscle; the deepest-down of all, it does a complete wraparound your midsection and pulls it in like a corset.
Let me explain: When I sit in my chair nothing happens, so I switch over to sit on a pumped-up stability ball. When I lean slightly backward, there it is all of sudden – my rectus abdominis activates to support my spine because there is no backrest to do the job. "The stability ball requires your torso to balance on an unsteady surface.
It forces your abs to fire. I find I can also activate the rectus abdominis, not to mention my heretofore-napping obliques, by pulling in my belly button. Can you imagine now how important the abdominal muscles are when it comes to back pain? So now we know how many abdominal muscles we have and where they are in the body.
External Obliques – The outer layer of the abs on your sides; these run diagonally downward.
Internal Obliques – Just underneath the external obliques, these run diagonally up your sides.
Rectus Abdominis – Two paired sheets of muscle from the ribs to the pelvis that flex you forward.
Transversus Abdominis – The deepest ab muscle, which wraps around the waist to support the spine.
Think of your ab muscles as the meat in the middle of a fat sandwich (nice thought?). On top of them is subcutaneous fat, the stuff you pinch as you look in the mirror. Below them is visceral fat, which is the type that takes up residence next to your internal organs — in excessive amounts if you continually overdo it on calories. When you fill up those subcutaneous areas, fat winds up getting stored where it shouldn't, in your deep abdomen or your liver. Visceral fat has been linked to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. But because you don't have X-ray vision to see whether too much of the potentially dangerous visceral fat is parking itself in your own belly, scientists have figured out a couple of DIY guidelines.
To avoid increased risk of obesity-related diseases, women should have a waist measurement no bigger than 35 inches (measure it at the smallest point of your midsection), and some experts recommend a waist-to-hip ratio of around 0.8, meaning that your waistline should be no greater than 80 percent of your hip circumference. According to a Mayo Clinic study released last year in May, the ratio of waist to hip is believed to be a measurement of visceral fat. Other fascinating research, published in the American Journal of Human Biology, found that women who give birth before age 40 have an average of two centimetres more fat around their bellies than women of the same ages who haven't given birth. Interesting isn’t it? Although I still think that if you train during pregnancy, you will absolutely have less body fat after pregnancy than a woman who did not train while being pregnant.
Step one and most important is to toss the trans fats, which are found in pre-packaged treats under the alias partially hydrogenated oils and have been shown to pack on body fat, particularly in the abdomen. Replace them with monounsaturated fats, for example, olive oil and those in walnuts and avocados, which help your body metabolize belly fat. And swig some reduced-fat milk, like one percent or skim, while you're at it: Calcium increases the activity of enzymes that break down fat cells and reduces the stress hormone cortisol, which triggers your body to hoard belly fat.
Step two is to get some calorie-burning cardio exercise. Of course you've already heard that pointer often, noting that high-intensity aerobic exercise is even more effective at burning off visceral fat than the same amount of low-intensity exercise. In one study, they had overweight women walk or jog five times a week; one group worked out for a longer amount of time at a low intensity, while the other did shorter stints of high-intensity work. Even though each group burned the exact number of calories in each workout, the high-intensity group melted off more visceral fat. "We speculate that there's a relation between the intensity of the workout and the amount of growth hormone released, which is a powerful mobilizer of visceral fat. Knowing this, you should know exactly the moment to switch the training to something else. That’s the job of your personal trainer and the only way to keep that “engine” running.
Good workout for the abdominals are crunches for your rectus abdominis, bicycles for the obliques. Fantastic abdominal exercises are the tolasana and the plank both yoga, Pilates and fitness exercises.
Conclusion: Spend time, change habits and live happy for you and your child. Let me help you! If you have questions or need more information about Fitness Training, call me, Desiree Winkel, at 524-7700. We are located on Welfare Road, next to Tendal Real Estate and North Eastern Insurance on the first level of the building.
