Can anyone tell me how to fix my stomach area? (photos)

Hi everyone,
I'm 5"2 and weigh 103 lbs and have had two children. I do not want to lose any weight (especially from my breasts! There's not much there to begin with!) but I would really like to have washboard abs and to have a rounder bum as mine is really flat. I've been exercising for a week, alternating between aerobics (sit ups, lunges, burpees, crunches) combined with squats using weights (as many as I can handle) and swimming (60 lengths per hour).

I've always lead a very sedentary lifestyle so this is most exercise I've ever done in my life!

I've also ordered a pole and will be doing pole fit from home.

Anyway.. can anybody tell me which specific exercises will target the flabby area on the photos?
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I don't know why the photos are the wrong side up :S

Thanks in advance! :sport:
 

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I'll start with the bad news first.
There is no such thing as a way to spot train fat. There are many who will sell you a miraculous way to do so, none of them will guarantee it because they know in truth it doesn't happen.

Visibility of abs is not related to how strong they are as much as the body fat covering them. A quick look at Žydrūnas Savickas of world's strongest man fame has abs stronger than anyone who will ever post on this forum, but no sign of a six pack due to them being behind a foot or so of fat. Wouldn't suggest anyone calling him fat within arms reach though.

You will be able to build up a good all round shape if introducing a good balance to your routine. At the moment it is quite uneven and there are risks to this. I posted a homage to uneven training in mythbusting the fitness files part of which covers the danger of training abs a lot and not the rest of your core. Simply put if one side of your core becomes a strength the other becomes a weakness, and considering the volume of people with lower back pain this is not something to take lightly.
We all have parts of our body that are lagging behind the rest, but it is important to train as evenly as possible to ensure we remain safe. A bit of emphasis on weaknesses is one thing, only training them is dangerous.

The standard system for balance is BALS (Back, Arms, Legs, Stomach) which should really be PPLC (Pull, Push, Legs, Core) but BALS is easier to remember.
Examples of this is below
Back or Pull, Deadlift, bent over row, upright row
Arms or Push, Push ups, shoulder press, bench press
Legs or Legs, Squats, lunges, tuck jumps
Stomach or Core, Plank, side plank, overhead squats (have to be tried to be understood)

Ensure you have some variety and keep it fun so if you find something a bit different go for it.

Final bit that will not sit well. You want to build muscle, plain and simple, there is no other way to get the curves you are looking for. You will not end up looking like the former governor of California unless you start using intramuscular hormone supplements but could end up looking like one of the majority of bikini models who use body building styled training along with aerobics etc. to give curves they need to display.
This means doing reps that will enable you to build muscle, normally I would say 10 to 6 but in truth I would say you are more likely to appreciate 10s and 12s. There is a catch here, the 10th or 12th rep needs to be your last because you couldn't do an 11th or 13th, otherwise you aren't overloading as you need to.
Training in this way will build you a more curved backside and give you stronger abs, it may well be that your body fat is low enough for this alone to give you the appearance of abs you want anyway.
 
Hi CrazyOldMan,
Thank you for replying! and thanks for the advice.

I do want to build muscle tone, not former governor of california style but enough so I've got a bit of an ass!
I will incorporate what you said into my routine.. although not today as I can hardly stand up my muscles are aching so bad.

What weight dumbbells would you recommend? I'm using two 2.5kg ones at the moment is that enough?

Also do you do these reps slowly or as quick as possible? I find myself doing them really fast to get it over and done with but my boyfriend told me that that is a bad idea and I'll hurt myself - is this true?
 
Weight is personal. I have recently started training with my early pubescent son so his max weight is currently 2 x 1.25kg disks tied onto a piece of plastic plumbing pipe, my 10 rep max weight is a touch higher than this, but I've got 23 years more experience than he has.
There are ways to increase intensity with lesser loads, which is not a bad idea in early stages, more weight does equal more risk, people saying otherwise are idiots. The important part is to have done your rep max. If you finish a set of 10 feeling like it was easy you didn't push enough. If there was 1 more or even 2 in you in the early stages that's not too bad, by the time you are a more 'seasoned' trainer this becomes less acceptable. When I rerack after a set of squats I am either finished or thinking up the weight next time.
To increase intensity without increasing weight you can do some or all of the below.
Add impact, if safe. My heaviest ever squat is 205kg, heaviest ever jump squat is 100kg. Getting an inch or so of air beneath my feet halved my potential lifting ability, strictly speaking it didn't as I only did 205 for 1 and managed 100 for 6 but the principal is sound. Use this method with caution, if there are injuries etc. that could be aggravated by impact, don't do it until you are sure and if you do ensure there is someone there to keep an eye on your form, someone who will not be afraid to tell you if you're doing it wrong, my son is great at this.
Remove rest. Circuit training is a way of being able to decrease your max weight needs. You have a session where you go from one exercise to another with no rest, 10 reps of each, this can be whole body if wanted. You recover from one thing while doing another, but overall fatigue will win out and even if set 1 felt easy enough to add a bit more weight I guarantee you set 3 or 4 won't. Have water nearby, you will get very warm and need it.
Expand range or slow movement. I will come to pace later but slowing the movement down or expanding the range of movement under control are valid ways of making the weight feel heavier. As a bit of fun I decided to do slow rep work at the end of last year, a single deadlift was taking me between 20 and 30 seconds making my entire body shake like a leaf well before rep 10. Range extension is good if not bounced etc. I have seen people boast of doing butt on heals squats and seen they are bouncing off their heels to give them momentum, making it easier, control is key.

The speed debate. Is slower or faster better? Yes.
Slower movement means you are under load longer making the overall intensity higher. However a fast movement requires co-ordination and control to do well so per moment it can be more intense. Consider the idea of someone doing push ups for a minute without any pause or rest, someone doing 10 means they have taken 3 seconds lowering their body than another 3 raising it without stopping at any point, this is intense. Another person doing 50 will have taken barely more than a second per rep so worked hard and fast throughout, not the soft option.
Pace is something to play with, but in early days stick to moderate, slightly slower or faster. As you become more experienced it can be fun to push yourself in both directions.
Something I call fast reps is in a way a bit of a misnomer and should only be tried after consultation with a psychiatrist. The principal is to try lifting the weight as fast as possible then controlling it back down. The crease in this sensible seeming session is the weight is more than I can move fast, so in effect I can spend a few seconds trying in vane to move a weight in a hurry, this increases the intensity immensely. You need to be very confident in the movement to be doing this and ideally have a spotter, rep failure rate on this session is high.
Faster can be more dangerous if done badly, but so can slower. Being in a dodgy position for a long time is no safer than being there for a moment. It is easier to do fast movements dangerously because people concentrate more on pace than form. I tend to say get the form 100% first then play. If you are in doubt have someone watch you. There is nothing wrong with doing something safely wrong, low intensity, and learning from it, but dangerously wrong is stupid. I post up some videos of me doing deadlifts with fat gripz some over a year ago because I knew I was getting them wrong. I got torn apart by some of the regulars here for various errors, most I had spotted myself, but the net result is I can now use this new kit as part of an exercise I am very used to safely. Others sometimes post videos to boast, I only put up the rubbish stuff. People who will tell you what you are doing wrong based on your own criteria are invaluable.

Be careful on intensity in early stages. If you find yourself immobile too often it can be hard to keep motivated. I'm just moving out of some remedial work so when I was walking like I'd soiled myself last week I was happy about it, we fitness fanatics are a strange bunch. Strangely as time goes on you either become happy as you are and stop aching nearly as much or keep finding new and creative ways to make sure you tell the day of the week by which body parts hurt most.

The main part people forget when declaring as you did 'I do want to build muscle tone' is that it has to be built. No muscle can't be toned, there has to be something to carry the tone. As another poster on here, goldfish, often points out women building muscle is generally incredibly slow, there are heavyweight body builders who have injected testosterone into their bodies to make them more male in how they gain muscle, others who are genetically gifted to gain weight more easily. But on the whole if you trained like a body builder when doing your weights and still keep to aerobics etc. the reality is you will build up a small amount and just look toned. The standard fear of many women is to look too bulky and muscular, truth is most women would have to work incredibly hard for years deliberately to do so.
Most amusing thing I remember hearing was a woman who'd come into the gym with her friend and, while her friend trained she sat in the lounge. Her declaration of 'I wouldn't want to do this weight training because I wouldn't want to get big arms' would have been less amusing if she wasn't sporting a set of minimum 15 inch arms, looking over twice as big as her friend in the gym's. Big difference of course being hers were pure blubber while her friends were mostly lean muscle that looked smooth and toned at rest and more serious under load.

Main thing I forgot last time. Make sure you find stuff you enjoy. If doing what I say is horrible for you and you hate it after giving it time to grow on you, stop and find something else, even come back and tell us here so we can suggest alternatives. If you find stuff you enjoy that gets the gains you want at half the pace of stuff you hate, take twice as long. Most people quit training because they don't enjoy it rather than because they see no improvement. Early gains happen quickly but if you hate what you are doing the slower gains that happen the rest of the time won't seem worth it.
My brother plays football and hates weight training I am the opposite. Subsequently he plays football, I do weights, both of us have done for many years because we enjoy it. We both enjoy cardio of different types so despite both being middle aged and him drinking like a fish without gills the chances are our hearts are in good shape.
 
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