3 Mistakes Stopping YOU From Having A Toned Stomach

Fed up of that overhang when you put on your favourite pair of jeans? Fed up of shying away from wearing a bikini because of how your stomach looks? Fed up of doing lots of sit ups but never seeing any definition?

Having a toned stomach is one of the most common goals I hear when speaking to women starting off on their fitness journey. However the vast majority of people use ineffective methods to see definition around their core and end up never seeing the results they desire. 

Lets break down the 3 most common mistakes people make when trying to work towards a flat stomach 

1. ABS ARE MADE IN THE KITCHEN - This is something I am sure everyone has heard but yet so many people still try to out train a bad diet. Everyone already has abs, if you didnt you literally wouldn't be able to stand up. So you don’t need to ‘build abs’ - you simply need to remove the extra body fat covering them. The most effective way to lose body fat is going into a calorie deficit and this occurs with your food intake - not how many sit ups you do in the gym. Are you aware of how much food you are consuming? Are you aware of what foods bloat you? This should be your first area of focus 
2. WEIGHT TRAINING BUILDS A DEFINED CORE QUICKER THAN SIT UPS - you can do endless sit ups, planks etc but you will always see quicker and more effective results when you include resistance training in your exercise plan. All compound movements like squats, deadlifts, lunges etc require you to embrace your core to perform the movement, when you add weight to that you are essentially putting your core under weight which will create a more defined core quicker than any bodyweight movement. So if you are not doing any weight training and are constantly on a yoga mat trying to work on your core you are making the process a lot slower for yourself 
3. YOUR ABS ARE BUILT UP OF 3 DIFFERENT MUSCLES, THEY ALL NEED TRAINED - A lack of knowledge of how your core is actually made makes training styles ineffective. Your core or ‘abs’ have three main muscle components: your front abs, Rectus abdominis, your obliques, which are on the side and lower abs, what most women refer to as their ‘pouch’. An effective core workout will target all three. Overtraining one area, which is usually the front abs for most as that is the only area people are aware of will mean a lack of development of the core as a whole

Core FINISHER - This should be done at the end of your weight session. You should also only train your core directly 2-3 times a week to avoid overtraining 

5 rounds of 

**Butterfly sit ups: 20 reps - This will target your front abs 

**Russian Twists: 16 reps - This will target your obliques at the side

**Lying Leg Raises: 12 reps - This will target your lower abs

**Plank:30-45secs - This will target your core on a whole 

**Mountain Climbers: 20 reps - This will target your front abs mostly but will still hit your obliques and lower abs