Exercises for fabulous Abdominals

Getting started: Get your heart rate up and melt the flab that's covering your abs with this routine. Perform the exercises one right after the other, moving quickly from one to the next. This continuous movement will keep your body warm and working hard.

Exercise Ball Crunch
Lie back on an exercise ball so your torso is parallel to the floor, feet hip-width apart and knees bent 90 degrees. Press your lower back into the ball and place your hands lightly behind your head. Lift your shoulders while keeping your hips stationary. Squeeze your abs briefly at the top, then slowly return to the start position and repeat without bouncing or pausing. Be sure you crunch by flexing your spine, not your hips.

Exercise Ball Oblique Crunch
Lie back on an exercise ball, torso parallel to the floor, hands lightly behind your head. Lift your shoulders by contracting your abs, then twist your torso to aim your left shoulder toward your right knee. Hold briefly, return to the neutral crunched position, then slowly return to the start position. Alternate reps to each side.

Cable Crunch
Attach either a close-grip handle or a rope to a high-pulley cable. Facing the weight stac, step back 2-3 feet and kneel down, taking a firm grip with both hands in front of you and leaning forward slightly. Keep your lower body stationary as you contract your abs and aim your elbows toward your knees to curl your torso toward the floor. Squeeze your abs briefly, then slowly return to the start position.

Kick Out
Lie faceup on the floor with your knees and hips bent 90 degrees. Place your hands down by your sides and extend your legs straight out at about a 45 degree angle. Hold this position for a count, then slowly return to the start. Repeat for reps without letting your feet touch the floor.

Tip: Exercise balls come in a variety of sizes, but as a general rule of thumb, when you sit on a ball, your knees should be even with or slightly below your hips.

Why weight lifting is important for women?

Many women are afraid of weight lifting; they think they'll end up looking like the Incredible Hulk or, at the very least, too big or bulky. Some female weight loosing enthusiasts say, "I don't life weights because I don't want to bulk up."

It is very difficult for a woman to produce large muscles because women generally have high levels of the hormone estrogen. Estrogen is the hormone that produces female sex parts and our typically smaller amounts of lean tissue. Men typically produce more of the hormone testosterone, which produces the male sex parts and typically larger muscle tissue naturally. The improvements women experience will be made in muscle tone, strength, and endurance - not necessarily in size. As muscles become toned, the body begins to lose fat tissue and becomes firmer. When it comes to strength training, anything that is considered a healthy practice for men is also healthy for women. The fears about bulking up have created a cardio-only mind-set that serves only to burn-calories, but rarely tones or tightens. Resistance exercises such as weight lifting increase your lean muscle mass, which in turn increases the amount of tissue in your body that naturally burns calories in a resting state (ie, while you're sleeping!). If you do only cardio-based workouts, you'll burn calories and increase your cardiovascular output, but you risk the chance of burning muscle, thus slowing down your capability to burn calories and fat over the long run. This means you will risk the chance of slowing down your metabolism - not the effect you want. Cardio is only part of the job.

In addition, as women age, it becomes increasingly important that they focus on resistance exercises. Many changes in muscle tissue that are associated with age are caused by disuse. Just forcing your muscles to work on a regular basis can significantly improve their capacity to do work. You'll see improvements in circulation, coordination, balance, and bone and ligament strength. All of this is especially important for preventing loss of bone density and avoiding osteoporosis. You don't want to look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, do you? Then get lifting! You can actually sabotage your own efforts because of your fears. Lift some weights, do cardio, and find the right nutrition. This combination will give you the strong, lean, healthy results you desire and lose some weight quickly.

Why free weights?

I like to use free weights when I lift for a couple of reasons:

• Cost: Free weights aren't too expensive and are generally available at any sporting goods store. It's pretty easy to purchase a set to keep and use at home.
• Options: There are a multitude of different exercises that you can do with free weights. Also, you have the ability to easily work at different levels of intensity by using lighter or heavier weights.
• Challenge: If you use proper form, free weights allow you a better range of motion than a machine does, which adds a new dimension of difficulty to your workouts and challenges multiple areas of body at once. When you grow stronger, your body adapts to challenges at a quicker pace, and you're forced to challenge your muscles with different modalities and heavier weights to avoid a plateau. With free weights, the result is that more muscles are engaged and you get a more efficient workout. Although it may seem less efficient, you must go slowly, use good form, and use a controlled movement to work the muscles the right way to see your body change.