Practicing yoga may also help you develop muscle tone and improve your metabolism. While restorative yoga isn't an especially physical type of yoga, it still helps in weight loss. One study found that restorative yoga was effective in helping overweight women to lose weight, including abdominal fat.
Would you like to flatten your stomach fast without doing crunches? Of course you would, who wouldn't appreciate a nicely toned set of abs?! In a way, that's almost a silly question.
These days, especially when Summer or "beach season" draws near, it seems like everyone and their uncle would like to transform their unsightly beer-belly-looking gut into a nice, flat stomach practically overnight.
Although most people seek to flatten their stomach more for vanity sake, there are some very legitimate health benefits to having a strong, well-defined set of abs.
For example, having strong abdominal muscles will provide you with greater back support and better body posture thus decreasing the chances of you developing back problems in your later years, especially if you're involved in a job or occupation that requires you to either sit or stand for an extended period of time.
Because I would rather not bore you with a lengthy essay, this article will focus entirely on how you can strengthen your lower abdominal muscles and flatten your stomach, simultaneously.
However, before I dive right into discussing exercise(s) that would help you flatten your stomach, let's talk specifically about the science or anatomy of the lower abdominal muscles. Don't worry, I will do my best not to get too technical.
Understanding the lower abdominal muscles
In humans, the lower abdominal muscles, which cover that part of the abdomen lying between the hips and lower portion of the pelvic bones, are subject to a continuous, daily strain, as they support the heavy viscera within the human body.
If your lower abdominal muscles become weakened due to constant inactivity or a sedentary lifestyle they will relax or become atrophied, and that's when you're more likely to develop that unsightly condition known as a "gut" or "pot belly." A far greater danger is also ever present: the probability of a rupture of your lower abdominal muscles from any sudden strain or trauma to your body.
A better insight or understanding of the lower abdominal muscles will help you to hopefully appreciate more the abdominal exercise described below, specifically designed to help you strengthen your lower abdominal muscles and show you how you too can flatten your stomach by simply using your own body weight.
You see, in principle, developing your abdominal muscles is no different from developing the other muscles of your body. In other words, if you perform the right muscle-training exercises with sufficient regularity and frequency you can enhance the muscles in any particular area of your body including your abdominal muscles.
And, the more muscles you develop in your body, your resting metabolic rate (RMR), which is your ability to burn calories while your body is at rest, will be significantly increased thus enabling you to lose weight, burn fat, and do it fast.
It is only when you've been able to bring your body fat down to an acceptable range by engaging in resistance training, cardiovascular training, and maintaining a proper diet that you will be able to have or achieve the highly coveted flat stomach or six-pack abs. Sorry, doing thousands of abdominal crunches alone from sunrise to sunset, every day, will not help you flatten your stomach.
The external, or descending, oblique muscles are situated on the side and fore-part of the abdomen. They are the largest and most superficial of the broad, thin, flat muscles that brace and support the lower part of the abdomen.
They are firmly attached to the external surface and lower borders of the inferior, or lower, ribs. From these cartilaginous attachments other smaller muscles proceed in various directions. They lap, overlap, and interlace, and thus form a muscular webbing designed to support and protect the underlying bowels and organs.
These external muscles are again braced by a system of deep-seated internal muscles, the whole forming
a wonderfully ingenious structure designed to support and protect the underlying organs.
At this part of the body great muscular strength is requisite to sustain the pressure of the viscera within. If these muscles become weakened, serious results may follow. The importance of especially exercising and strengthening these supporting muscles is therefore evident.
Developing your lower abdominal muscles is easily accomplished while in a recumbent position, as follows:
A simple exercise to help you strengthen your lower abdominal muscles & flatten your stomach, simultaneously.
Lying upon your back, bend one knee upwards and inwards; as you do so, draw up the hip of that side. You will find this action tenses all of the lower abdominal muscles. Then drop that leg back to its original position, and bend the knee, and draw up the hip of the other side.
Alternate in the exercising, first upon the right side, then the left. After a few trials you will acquire control of the hip movement, after which the exercise will be very easy and improvement rapid.
If you're a beginner to exercising in general, I would recommend starting with three repetitions on each side, increasing, as your physical condition or fitness level improves, to between fifteen to twenty-five repetitions.
Of course, there are TONS of other abdominal exercises that you can use to help you develop your lower abdominal muscles and flatten your stomach; but, the abdominal exercise described above should at least get you started on your journey towards achieving a flat or flatter stomach.
