30 Day Abs Challenge Teaser
Well you don’t have to fret any longer. This fast, 30 day ab challenge is the perfect way to get the results you want for your tummy. And it’s just in time for bathing suit season. Thank goodness! The best part is, you can do this challenge at home, so you don’t have to worry about going out of your way to get a good core workout in during your day.
This challenge will not only schedule your ab exercises to do each day, but will also explain how to do these simple exercises and what they are working and why they are more beneficial than what you have been doing. So, enough talk – let’s get you on your way to a flat, toned stomach and rock hard abs!
30 Day Ab Challenge Workouts for Women that Work
So you’ve been doing your crunches, but you still aren’t getting the results you want. Just like with any muscle group, you want to do multiple different exercises in order to activate different parts of your core. Here are eight of the best core exercises for women that will be integrated into your 30 day ab challenge, along with detailed instructions on how to perform the exercise properly for optimal results.
The Plank
Plank
The plank is the number one go-to for all things core related and should be included in all core workouts for women. It works all the muscles of the abdomen, including your obliques (the tummy muscles that line the outer sides of your stomach), as well as the muscles in your lower back, which are an important part of your core. There are two different variations explained here, which you will also find in the plank challenge.
Forearm Plank: To perform this exercise properly, place your forearms on the ground, your weight on the balls of your feet, and hold your stomach off the ground. Brace your abdomen, contract your quads and squeeze your glutes to make sure your body is forming a straight line, just like a wood plank.
Side Plank: To perfect this exercise properly, choose a side. If you are laying on your left side, your left forearm is going to be on the ground, as well as the side of your left foot – with your right foot setting on top of it. Stack your legs and hips and stabilize your body to prevent rolling from side-to-side. Using your stomach muscles and the muscles of your outer hips and thigh (the abductors), lift yourself off the ground, keeping your body in a straight line.
Superwoman
Superwoman
Commonly known as the superman, but changed because women are awesome, the superwoman is a less popular core exercise for women because it doesn’t target the front stomach muscles which is most common but this is actually one of the best core workouts for women. The superwoman is going to put emphasis on your love handle area.
To perform this exercise properly, lay on the ground on your stomach with your arms stretched out in front of you and your legs stretched out behind you. Keeping both your arms and legs straight, lift them off of the ground using the muscles in your lower back. Make sure to keep your head forward and looking down. Hold the top position for a count before returning to the starting position.
Russian Twists
Russian Twist
This is a dynamic, or moving, core exercise, which means you are continuously activating and deactivating certain muscles of the core, allowing you to burn fat while performing the exercise.
To perform this exercise properly, sit on the ground, bring your knees close to your chest. Slightly lean back so your stomach muscles are activated. With controlled motions twist your core from side to side, letting your head go in the direction of your body. To increase the intensity of this exercise, lift your feet off the ground. If you really want to maximize the effects of our core workouts for women, hold a dumbbell, weight plate or med ball in your hands to complete a weighted Russian twist — that should get things burning.
Butt Lifts
Butt Lifts
Butt Lifts are one of the best core workouts for women. Don’t worry, they aren’t as weird as they sound, and they work wonders for that hard to reach part of your stomach: the lowest part of your abs. This is a tricky area to hit, as most core exercises target the upper abs, but butt lifts are here to fix that.
To perform this exercise properly, begin by laying on your back with your feet out in front of you and your hands under your backside. Lift your legs so your body forms a 90-degree angle. From there, using your lower abs, raise your butt off the ground, pushing your heels toward the ceiling. Hold for a count and slowly bring your butt back down to the ground. Keep your legs raised until you have completed the exercise.
Sit-ups
Sit-ups
Sit-ups are one of the best core exercises for women. This classic core exercise is great for all things tummy. Though difficult, as your strength begins to grow, you will find yourself performing this exercise with more ease. Also a dynamic exercise, this one is going to aid in your fat loss.
To perform this exercise properly, lay on your back with you feet close to your backside. Cross your hands over your chest or use them to support your neck. Using your stomach muscles, sit all the way up so your chest reaches your knees, and slowly release back down. To make this exercise easier, find a weight to put on your feet to help them stay down or you can stick them under the edge of your couch (put that thing to use in a healthy way).
Leg Lifts
Leg Lifts
Leg lifts engage the bulk of the abs, from your ribs down to your hips. They also do a number on your hip flexors — large muscles deep in your abdomen that connect your thighs to your spine that’s why they’re one of the best core workouts for women.
To perform this exercise properly, begin by laying on your back with your feet out in front of you and your hands under your backside. Lift your legs so your body forms a 90-degree angle. Slowly bring your legs down (keep them straight!), stopping about six inches from them hitting the floor. Raise them up again and repeat. To increase the intensity of this exercise, perform it hanging from a pull-up bar and try resisting gravity from a vertical position.
Mountain Climbers
Mountain Climbers
Mountain climbers are one of the best core exercises for women and are an integral part of our 30-day ab challenge and can be performed a variety of different ways. The version explained here keeps the muscles in your stomach activated and working the whole time. It also includes a lot of fast movement, which increases your heart rate and promotes fat loss in the stomach area as well as throughout the rest of your body.
To perform this exercise properly, begin in a straight arm plank. Bring one knee up to its corresponding armpit. From there, with a little running movement, switch legs so the other knee is up close to your chest. Begin slowly doing this exercise and speed up as you become more comfortable. Remember, just like when you’re doing a plank, keep your body nice and straight while quickly alternating your legs back and forth — the faster you move, the more oxygen you’re going to need and the more calories you’re going to burn, so make it count!
About the 30 Day Ab Challenge, Six-Packs, Flat Stomachs and a Toned Belly
So now that you know this 30 day ab challenge results are coming, and you know how to do the exercises that are going to be included in the challenge (don’t worry, there won’t be any surprises), let’s talk a little more about getting you that flat stomach and maybe even some six-pack abs.
In order to get a toned stomach, there are two things you need to do. First, you need to build the abdominal muscles. Then, you need to shed the fat that is covering your six-pack. So the question is, how is that done? There are three major components of successfully sculpting your tummy: strength training, fat burning, and healthy eating. This is true for all the muscles groups, and it holds very true for the abs.
Strength Training
This part is easy because it’s already all set up for you. By completing this 30 Day Ab Challenge, you will be performing the best core workouts for women that are going to get you a flat stomach. The importance of strength training is that it’s starting to build those muscles. When you have more muscles in your body, you are going to lose fat fast! This is where fat burning comes in.
We need to point out that in addition to these fantastic core workouts for women, you should also include full body strength training movements into your routine. Yes, this is a 30-day ab challenge, but the fact of the matter is–if you want results you need to build as much lean muscle as possible. Even though you are adding to your six-pack, that’s likely not going to be enough to get you where you want to be. To get the best results in the shortest amount of time possible add in compound exercises such as squats, lunges, shoulder press and push-ups. Then not only will you have killer abs, you’ll have a great body to go along with them.
Fat Burning
While you are gaining muscles in your stomach and throughout the rest of your underneath the extra fat, you still need to be performing fat burning exercises to speed up the process. These include the ab exercises with movement (yay for getting two things done at once!), plyometric exercises which are great for getting your heart rate up and the pounds falling off, as well as your typical cardio exercises such as running. As I mentioned before, building muscle allows you to lose fat quickly, so you want to make sure you have a good balance of both your strength training exercises as well as your fat burning exercises.
To ditch the fat fast, keep your cardio and other fat burning movements at a high intensity. If you’ve never tried high-intensity interval training (HIIT), now’s a perfect time. This type of training involves transitioning from work to rest intervals throughout the duration of your workout. For example, after a five to 10-minute warm-up, work hard for 60 seconds, follow that with 60 seconds of recovery. Continue the work-rest cycle for 10 rounds or a total of 20 minutes. Not only does this type of training minimize your workout time, HIIT has also been shown to be a very effective means for reducing abdominal fat.
Healthy Eating
While eating a clean, healthy diet is important for overall health in general, for getting a toned tummy, it is a must-have. Especially for women, one of the main places we see fat buildup is around the stomach and back, forming those not so lovely love handles. The fastest way to kick those love handles to the curb is to clean up your diet. Abs are made in the kitchen (and with a few of the best core exercises for women). What you eat is what’s going to show around your midsection. Now, you in no way have to have a super strict, perfectly clean diet in order to see results. In fact, your body needs nutrients that are found in fats and carbs, so you want to keep those in your diet. What you do want to stay away from are your cakes and donuts, drive-thru junk food outings, and any late night sugary or fatty snacks. Doing this, combined with your strength training and fat burning exercises can help you lose 15 pounds in a month and flatten your stomach.
30 Day Ab Challenge
In this challenge, you will be doing the best core exercises for women.
30 Day Abs Challenge
Need another challenge? Try our 30 Day Squat Challenge!
These exercises are helpful. Some of them I already know and practise. I hope all course help me to melt fat from the belly. I liked Russian twist and Mountain climbers. I think these two will be mostly fat consuming exercise.