Cardio and Ab Routines to Get Rid of Love Handles

You've probably heard of it, but have never done it: high intensity interval training (HIIT). If you have stubborn waist fat, you must make HIIT a permanent part of your life.

HIIT can be done on any cardio equipment, on a track, or on hiking trails. If you normally do aerobics classes, you must give a few of them up, since these classes are formatted for sustained effort at a less-than-strenuous level. HIIT involves short intervals of the highest cardio-output possible, alternating with rest periods of one to several minutes. The rest involves continued but gentle movement on whatever cardio equipment you're on, or continued walking if you're on a track or trail.

Warm up for 5-10 minutes. Then spend a few minutes going a little harder. Then begin your first work interval, which should not be your toughest. Each interval after that should be more demanding. The fourth or fifth interval should be ultra intense. Do 5-8 of these, depending on mood and how you feel. Then do a few work intervals at lighter intensity. Cool down for five minutes. Your resting metabolic rate will remain elevated for one to several hours afterward.

Do this two or three times a week for 30-45 minutes (excluding warm-up and cool-down), and your body will begin pulling energy from your love handles to sustain this new level of intensity. If you do HIIT outdoors, you can measure the intervals by either counting footsteps; by using visual reference points (such as half-way around the block or racing up every incline on a hiking trail); or by simply sprinting until your lungs can't take it.

Ab Routines

The visibility of a six-pack comes from a combination of intense ab exercises and low body fat. But the low body fat does not come from the ab exercises! To tighten and firm up ab muscles, intense ab routines are required.

Forget about super-high volume. Adjust the resistance and body positioning so that you can only do 8-30 reps per set. So for instance, rather than doing 150 tiny little crunches on the crunch machine, fold your body up as high as possible and hold for two seconds. Then slowly lower. The machine's bottom should never touch its support. This is cheating. Repeat these super-high folds. If you can barely do 12, you're on course for harder abs.

Each rep must be a sincere effort of folding up as high as possible, and maintaining the fold for 2-3 seconds. If you can do a lot of reps despite the highest fold, then the machine is too easy. Add weights or find another way with which to do ab routines. Apply this technique to all ab exercises.

You need spend only 5-10 minutes, three times a week, on abs, if done intensely where you feel a hot burn in your abs. The layer of body fat concealing your hard abs will start to vanish only by making the above changes.