And, we move on to assist the young man, building education in The One:
1. Fat burning abdominal exercises do not exist.
2. It is not possible to target a specific area of body fat on the human body.
3. You can decrease your body fat - through diet and exercise manipulation and you can lose the portion you desire---->
but you dont have the choice where it comes off as you move forward with your goal, but it WILL come off--from the place you want most--if your faithful with diet and excercise.
Why cant we spot reduce?
This is an important question and one I'm frequently asked. You need to know a little bit of biology to understand the answer. Here's what you need to know. Fat is stored in special cells located all over your body called adipocytes. Adipocytes grow and shrink as they store and release fat, much like a balloon grows and shrinks as air is blown in and released. You gain weight when you pump up your adipocytes with fat by consuming more calories than you burn (excess calories can get stored as fat). You lose weight when your adipocytes release fat into the blood stream and shrink, either in response to exercise (exercise sends a signal to adipocytes to release fat) or when you reduce your calorie intake to the point where you are burning more than you consume. Fat released into the blood stream by adipocytes circulates to the muscles where it is burned for energy. (A car burns gasoline for energy; your muscles burn fat and carbohydrate.)
Exercise stimulates adipocytes to release fat by increasing circulation of hormones like norepinephrine (adrenaline). When norepinephrine reaches an adipocyte, no matter where in your body it's located, it signals special chemical messengers inside the adipocytes to stimulate fat release, and just like the balloon that shrinks when you let out the air, adipocytes shrink when they release fat. You will keep the fat off as long as it gets burned by the muscle and does not return to the adipocyte for storage. That's one of the reasons why exercise helps control body weight.
The reason that you can't spot reduce during exercise, which is what you are really asking, is that you don't have any control over which adipocytes release fat. Norepinephrine and the other hormones released during exercise do not discriminate. That is, they stimulate adipocytes to release fat wherever they are located. We all have patterns of weight loss and weight gain that tend to repeat (you typically gain and lose weight in the same pattern over and over), and we don't have any control over this.
Source:
Ask the Experts: Can I Spot Reduce During Exercise? on MedicineNet.com
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How long have you been fitness training?
And, when you say you train 4 times per week, what exactly do you do in these 4 sessions?
What are the specific exercises, sets, and reps?
What are your specific personal goals? I gather from your post, that you are relatively happy with your physique and progress other than a small pocket of body fat. Is this correct?
What is obviously missing from your post, is your diet details.
The diet will tame the efforts of
THE ONE in the gym or the diet will make
THE ONE roar through efforts in the gym.
Do not ever forget this.
If you cannot afford a trainer, you have to be your own trainer. And, during this process,
never let KNOWLEDGE let you down within Diet and Fitness.
Bring POWER to THE ONE:
Carry this within your heart.
Education of diet is essential, and adapting/modifying this diet within one's lifestyle is key, along with understanding the benefits and limitations of exercise equipment available to use and blending this in--and around lifestyle variances.
Outside hiring a personal trainer/nutritionist you are going to have to be your own personal trainer and nutritionist and design a training program and diet structure within your lifestyle that works in conjunction with your personal activities.
And, this is possible. I believe nearly ANYTHING is possible. BELIEVE!
However, it will take some pre-work and personal development time to get it started.
And, this begins with the "degree of seriousness" you personally have for your personal diet and fitness choice, and the willingness to garner the knowledge "necessary" to understand yourself within this diet and fitness knowledge, and then appropriately and personally applying it within your life to allow you to earn your goal you seek.
1.
Take some time and seek knowledge of the almighty calorie and energy balance. Really and truly understand this.
A lot of persons can discouraged through lack of knowledge in what there trying to do and--how to properly adapt this knowledge within their likes and dislikes and their personal environment (and when it changes).
This means making threads and asking questions. This means getting on GOOGLE and doing specific searches. This means reading books, etc.
2.
Take the time to learn about different exercises you can do with your limited exercise equipment. Learn about the different types of body weight exercises. Body weight exercising is an excellent approach to your fitness.
This means to get to making threads and asking questions about them. This means getting on GOOGLE and doing specific searches. This means reading applicable books that are applicable to your situation and goal choice.
3.
Earn some understanding on the calories burned during certain exercises that are applicable to you and personal situation.
This means to get to making threads and asking questions about them. This means getting on GOOGLE and doing specific searches. This means reading applicable books that are applicable to your situation and goal choice.
If you have an activity that doesnt quite mesh with your goals, then
"fit in your diet and fitness goals to such a personal extent" that this percentage cannot possibly be erased with what makes you happy and desire to do.
Application of knowledge of diet and fitness along with application and knowledge of your limited equipment is the key. You can live your life with diet and fitness and be content with it at the same time.
You don’t have to get obsessed, but you do need to apply "enough of you".
"You need to just blend it in your life just enough" if you want it bad enough, to allow compliance progression toward your goal. We are not striving to be fitness athletes; however, the speed and agility of one's goal can be determined by application within one's lifestyle.
Go at your "educated" speed despite the naysayers. There are always going to be opinions on what you do, "let your education on diet and fitness guide you" according to the bodily feedback you are getting.
With this in mind:
Get your diet in order. Or at least specify what you have been doing, and if you haven't determined personal approximated calories, go here:
Nutrition 101
Delaware Consumer Health Information Services (Originally Posted by Wrangell)
2. A diet plan optimized for fat tissue loss, attempt to Maintain muscle
If you have other goals plans, please advise.
A. Determine your MT Line.
B. Create a small deficit
C. Create calorie TARGETS each day
D. Track your calorie intake each day
E. Learn how to manipulate the calorie versus fitness activities! THIS IS IMPORTANT!
F. Create an exercise program that is a FBW or an upper/lower split (when work and other life issues require such a split). Or flat develop "something" within the confines of what you have available to use (even marginally less equipment can get the job completed)
G. Create Diet and Fitness Training journals
E. Learn how EFFECTIVE calorie and nutrient manipulations can be. Study it, and learn when to apply them efficiently and effectively.
Some say dont track calories, some say do. Some that dont track calories are in the position of knowledge that they dont have to. Some are in the same position of knowledge want to eliminate the element of memory failure and track calories.
What ever you decide to do there is NO DOUBT what this information can do for you when its on paper--precisely--what you had been taking in calorie wise. It is a foundation base that CAN prevent heartache and weight loss plateaus......its underestimated IMO, because alot do not USE IT to their personal GOAL ADVANTAGE--properly, and this is TOO BAD.
I still track and count my calories to this very day.
Within this journal you would have information without a price tag. IMO.
I am going to assume you don’t have a diet journal.
Additionally, I am going to assume you don’t have a weight training journal. If you have one but not the other, shame on you. If you don’t have either, shame on you again.
The very problem you possess now could be better solved with:
1. Continued education and appropriate application of this knowledge
2. Data from: The Diet journal (and inputting goal progress per week, in fat loss)
3. Data from: The Fitness training journal
4. Periodic reviews and educated adjustments.
Watch, look, and listen, to your body:
The POWER OF PERSONAL DATA:
Use the data from the diet and fitness journals along with appropriate application of knowledge learned to have the tools available to "work with" to allow you to have a foundation to "work from" to make improvements, "when" complications come up during diet and fitness training.
If one is keeping a training journal, this essential journal can tell you many things: Your progress from one work out to the next (on individual exercises), and whether your progress is occurring good, or slowing down.
In addition, if one is keeping a diet journal per day along with the training journal, one can look in the diet journal per day and compare results in the training journal and in effect determine if its something in the diet or training and/or both is slowing progress.
I do sit ups like 3 times a week. Usually one set of 50 sit ups in each session. And occasionally briding. But not getting any real results.
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Some Info on the ab core:
Explains the Ab core area]
I believe one needs to understand the function and purpose (when being their own trainer) of the Ab core, in order to attempt to apply exercises that will bring "functional results".
How to get abs guide
All of the links, plus additional links (Not Listed here) that you may be interested in are in this link below:
http://training.fitness.com/new-member-intro/where-begin-all-info-links-18741.html
The reps on the ab core are to high (unless you need training for endurance for a specific reason).
4. TEACH YOURSELF good solid understanding on how each exercise effects the body--both indirectly and directly.
Therefore, if you examine the variants of the Squat and Deadlift for example, the torso (or ab region) performs its base function really well, and is hit indirectly with these two KINGS of ALL LIFTS--because they provide a support function.
Include these lifts if you haven't already.
I support training the core directly and indirectly. I support a program that surrounds the understanding that the body is designed to work in unison or one unit.
We can discuss some possibilities once we know more about your previous workout history, and diet.
I have alot of passion for the members on this forum. Each of you desire to achieve. Never get mad when you fail, many persons have failed when trying to something special. Its only a total failure when THE ONE gives up.
I wish you the best in all that you do in life and within fitness.
One's diet and fitness history is the teacher of the present. And, if the present condition isn't acceptable, then you look at the previous history, adapt through using the wisdom of the past to bring intelligence to the present.
(Chillen)
