Time was when fitness aficionados sweating away in gyms and fitness centers were comprised of men. In the early days of fitness, there were no such things as aerobics classes and certainly no female bodybuilders. Those dark, barbaric days of exercising have are long gone and it’s now a common site to see women slugging it out in the octagon or pumping iron and getting ripped.
As such, women that frequent fitness gyms nowadays rival men in numbers. What was once believed to be “macho” for men- lean, well-defined bodies and shredded midsections are now sexy for women also.
Popular cultural icons like Madonna, Janet Jackson and Fergie all spend a greater part of their day in the gym working on maintaining their six-pack and legions of adoring fans have been following suit. Fitness is the “in thing” right now and the popularity of athletes like Anna Kournikova, Maria Sharapova, and Tatyana Ali is evidence of this.
Let’s face it- under modern standards, women with abs look great and attaining and maintaining six-pack abs is the primary goal of female fitness buffs around the world. Wily businessmen know this and have been making a killing selling gimmicky products on infomercials.
Fat-burning creams claimed by their makers to isolate belly fat, diet programs and expensive ab machines that promise a six-pack in a few weeks. These are what cheerleaders, office workers and housewives have been paying good money for just to get a chiseled mid-section in the shortest time possible.
Sadly, a lot of women get ripped-off by these “revolutionary” products which don’t really do much to shorten the process of eliminating belly fat. The key to exposing the striations and contours of the abdominal muscles which give us that six-pack appearance is in getting rid of excess body fat. Take care of all-around body fat and we eliminate belly fat.
Studies reveal that the fastest way of burning body fat is by combining total body cardio exercises with muscle-building from weight training. Experts have found the former to burn the most body fat in the shortest amount of time. Muscle tissue increases our metabolism, so the more muscles we have, the easier it will be for us to burn fat.
Experts have discovered these cardio exercises burn the highest percentage of calories from stored fat rather than from muscle-building glycogen. In burning belly fat, the main goal is fat-loss and not muscle-loss. Losing glycogen by through improper exercise and skipping meals makes us lose out on muscle repair and development and no fitness buff wants that.
