Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Women With Abs Look Great

By Robert Casewood

Not a few decades ago, only men could be found in gyms and fitness centers of the world working on their abs and their physiques. Women found exercise in a few select sports and dancing. Times have changed and now members of "the weaker sex" can even be found competing in contact sports like boxing and the MMA.

Women now rival the men in gym attendance. Indeed, the fit, athletic look that long defined male sexiness has crossed genders and modern society's basis for female sexiness has gone from the voluptuous Monroe-esque image to the lean tanned surfer chick look complete with six-pack abs.

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.

Creams and ointments that are advertised to spot-reduce belly fat, diet shakes and abdominal exercise gadgets that promise to give you a six-pack in a few weeks for just "minutes a day"- these are all gobbled-up by desperate gym buffs trying to find the quickest path to six-pack glory.

Unfortunately, a large number of women find out all too soon that they've been let down after giving the latest product on the infomercials a try. Fact is, there is no way to really isolate belly fat. The only way to bring-out the abdominal muscles underneath the layer of fat around the midsection is by eliminating body fat first.

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. - 16083

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