Female fitness abs

It is completely feasible for ordinary women to want clear abdominal lines. They do not need to go on an extreme diet to burn body fat to the point of harming the body, nor do they need to be afraid of developing "massive abdominal muscles" - most women's testosterone levels are only 1/20 of men's. It is impossible to develop exaggerated abdominal muscles like men without taking medicine or doing heavy weight training. Different aesthetic needs correspond to different training and diet plans, and there is no single "correct standard".

Not long ago, I met a 1999-year-old girl at the gym. She spent half an hour in the yoga area doing abdominal crunches every day. After practicing for two months, her belly was still soft. When I asked her, I found out that she always buys a cup of bubble milk tea after get off work. She also goes out to eat hot pot with friends on weekends. Her body fat has been hovering around 26%. It’s weird that she can have lines. In fact, to put it bluntly, the abdominal line is like a sculpture covered under the cloth, and body fat is the layer of cloth covering it. The thinner the cloth, the clearer the sculpture will be, but the premise is that you have to carve out the core "sculpture" first, otherwise you will not be able to see anything no matter how thin the cloth is.

Regarding this point, fitness practitioners with different systems have quite different opinions. Friends who compete in bodybuilding competitions will tell you categorically that "abdominal muscles are made by slimming down." This is indeed true. If you want a clear six-pack or even eight-pack line, your body fat must be reduced to less than 17%. However, for most ordinary women, this body fat rate will most likely affect your aunt and cause hair loss. Unless you are preparing for a competition, there is really no need to bother. But if you want to be able to reveal a faint vest line when wearing a short top, then the coach who does functional training says it is more practical: control the body fat between 20% and 22%, and train the core strength in place. Even if there is a little fat coverage, the lines will be revealed when tightening the belly. It will look natural every day and will not affect endocrine.

The year before last, I gritted my teeth and brushed fat for two months for a birthday photo shoot. I ate boiled vegetables and did aerobics for 40 minutes every day, and my body fat dropped to 16.8%. My abdominal muscles were indeed obvious, and the photos I took were particularly photogenic. But during that time, not only did I lose hair in handfuls when I washed my hair, but my aunt also recommended it. It was 18 days late, and I was so scared that I quickly resumed my normal diet. Now my body fat is stable at around 19%. My belly is soft when I relax. When I tighten it, there are obvious waistline lines. It will bulge after eating too much hot pot milk tea, but it does not affect my daily beauty at all, and my physical condition is much better.

There is another question that has been controversial for a long time: Should we do abdominal exercises every day? I have talked to two coaches with completely different systems before. One specializes in bodybuilding training. He said that the abdominal muscles are a tolerance muscle group and recover much faster than other skeletal muscles. It is no problem to do hundreds of crunches every day. ； Another person who does sports rehabilitation said that the abdominal muscles are also muscles after re-building. If you put on weights, such as hanging a barbell to do abdominal crunches or weight-bearing hanging leg raises, you must give enough rest time of 48 hours, otherwise excessive tension in the core will pull the lumbar spine and easily lead to constipation. This is true when I try it myself. If I do low-intensity exercises like dead bugs and planks for 15 minutes on the same day, I won’t feel any discomfort if I continue practicing the next day. But if I practice with an additional 10 pounds of weight, my abdomen will be so sore the next day that it hurts even when I smile. If I practice hard again, my waist will really become stiff.

Sisters who have given birth to a baby should really not practice crunches as soon as they have a baby. My best friend was anxious to lose weight after giving birth last year. She followed the online video and did crunches for half a month, but her belly became more protruding. When she went to the hospital, she found that the rectus abdominis was separated by two and a half fingers. Practicing blindly only made the separation wider and wider. Later, she did abdominal breathing, Kegel exercises and other repairing exercises for three months. After the separation was reduced to less than one finger, she started to do normal abdominal training. Now the baby is one and a half years old, and the waistline is better looking than before pregnancy. Some people say that women are naturally prone to fat accumulation in the lower abdomen and cannot develop lower abdominal lines? It’s really not true. Most people don’t exert their strength properly. A colleague I worked with used to hold her neck hard every time she practiced crunches. Her neck was extremely sore the next day after the workout, and her abdomen didn’t feel at all. Later, I asked her to practice abdominal breathing for a week to find the feeling of core strength, and then slowly add reverse crunches, hanging leg raises and other lower abdominal exercises. Two months later, she told me that when she wore low-waisted jeans, she could already see faint lines on her lower abdomen, which made her so happy.

To be honest, I still feel that there is no unified standard for abdominal muscles. Some people like the angular and lumpy feeling when tightening, and are willing to control their diet and do weight training for this purpose, which is totally fine. ； Some people like the natural feeling of being soft when they are relaxed and having lines when they are relaxed. You don’t need to be too strict about your daily meals. It is enough to do core training for ten minutes three or four days a week. ； Some people even don’t want abdominal muscles at all, but just want to practice core strength to protect their lumbar spine, and that’s totally fine. The purpose of fitness is to make yourself happy and comfortable. Don't beat yourself up for the "perfect abs standard" on the Internet. What you like is the best.