Here’s some tips on eating better, along with a complete 7-Day guide to Fat Loss with lots of secrets to get the most fat burning results in the least amount of time.

By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
www.TurbulenceTraining.com

Sunday
Okay, picky eaters, you’ve got some work to do. Your goal this week is to try one new fruit and one new vegetable.

C’mon, you can do it!

And don’t forget to get at least 30 minutes of fun, easy activity. I’ll be walking around London before I fly back to Toronto tonight.

Monday
Do your TT workout and add a 6-minute abs workout at the end.

Tuesday
If you are up for a challenge, try the TT Member’s weekly workout competition. Each week we come up with a new challenge that every TT Member can try. You’ll find this week’s program on the TT Forum. It’s tough, but still appropriate for most folks to do on their off-days (unless you are a beginner).

Wednesday
After today’s TT workout, take 5-10 minutes to lie down, and breathe slowly and deeply from your belly. Just relax, focus on the breathing, and inhale and exhale some of your stress away. You’ll be amazed at what this simple 5-minute break can do for you.

Thursday
Get 30-minutes of light activity and include an extra round of all the stretches from your TT manual. For desk workers, do an extra 30-second stretch for the chest, hip flexors, and hamstrings.

Friday
Finish off your TT workout with a round of 3-minute arms - or two if have time. If you have Halloween duties, then do your workout on the weekend and spend today walking the kiddies around the ‘hood.

Saturday
Get rid of all the Halloween junk that you don’t need to have in the house. Tell your kids to hide their candy. Give away the extra chocolate bars and chips that you didn’t hand out on Friday.

Get rid of the junk before you eat it. And don’t feel bad about throwing it in the garbage. It’s called “junk food” for a reason.

Now that’s a proven 7 day plan for fat loss,

About the Author

Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit www.TurbulenceTraining.com

In fact, there are many exercises better and safer than crunches.
After all, crunches involve spinal flexion (rounding forward), and research shows spinal flexion can lead to herniated discs.

This information has lead me to a long and exhaustive search for safe and effective ab training.

Last week I stumbled onto a new study supporting my “ab crunch ban”
and my preference for exercises such as the Side Plank. In this study, researchers examined six common ab exercises performed by 120 subjects to see how hard the muscles were working.

Reference
J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 2008 Oct;38(10):596-605.Related Articles Changes in deep abdominal muscle thickness during common trunk-strengthening exercises using ultrasound imaging.

When compared to other common ab exercises, the Side Plank and the classic Abdominal Crunch exercises both resulted in the greatest change in muscle thickness for the Transverse Abdominis and Internal Oblique muscles, meaning they were contracting the muscle more than the other exercises.

However, because the Side Plank does not involve spinal flexion and because it builds abdominal endurance (previously found to be associated with less low back pain), the Side Plank exercise wins this head to head battle hands down and is the best exercise for oblique muscles.

If you are looking for a new move to add to your total body fat burning workout, do a 15 second Side Plank hold per side if you are a beginner. For advanced core strength, hold for 45 seconds per side.

Click here to learn more about the best bodyweight abs exercises:

=> Turbulence Training For Abs

Well, I’m thinking about sticking around another year if you don’t mind. But you might need to get a bigger pair of pants, as I was thinking about expanding my place down here.

So do me a favor, avoid that interval training you were thinking of doing. The last time you did that stuff, I nearly had to look for a new place to live. I felt like the Wicked Witch of the West in the land of Oz. Did you hear me yelling, “Help me, I’m melting!”?

Instead, stick to that slow cardio stuff. Sure I get a little sweaty, and the ol’ brain up there thinks it’s doing “a real fat burning workout”, but it’s never enough to melt me outta here.

Another thing, keep listening to those experts who say strength training doesn’t burn body fat. Since research shows they’re wrong, if you added strength training to your program, you’d practically need to throw me a going away party!

After each one of those superset workouts you tried last January it felt like someone lit a match under our collective butt. I was burning up down here!

But boy oh boy, I sure was glad you gave that up and went back to just lifting utensils and not dumbells. Otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to celebrate another summer together this year.

Sometimes I wonder, what did you ever do in college without me, your trusted belly fat? Back then, you were probably one of those people that couldn’t wait to get to the beach to show off your body, unlike these days.

Nope, stay in the shade and keep the cover-up clothes on, that’s the way to go now. Besides, its a lot closer to the cold beer and the BBQ when you’re sitting in the shade avoiding all the fun down on the beach.

Well, it sure was good catching up with you. I’m sure we’ll be in touch more often, as long as you stay away from that Turbulence Training workout routine.

Brings a tear to my eye whenever I even think about that workout program and all the belly fat it’s burned. Heck, it’s fried more fat than a short order cook at a roadside truckstop.

So again, if you want to keep your dear old belly around for another year and another summer, do NOT use Turbulence Training - otherwise, its all over pal, and you’ll never see me again.

Belly Fat says, “Don’t use this”

==> http://www.turbulencetraining.com

Your friend and spare tire,

Belly Fat

PS - Seriously!

Don’t go near that Turbulence Training program unless you want to see me, Thunder Thighs, Manboobs, Jigg Lee Arm Fat, and Luv Handles pack our bags and hit the highway.

It will be a sad farewell, and you’d be stuck with ripped abs, gorgeous glutes, and toned arms, and you know how much attention those guys get from the opposite sex. Who needs it, I say.

PPS - Don’t do what this guy and gal did.

They used Turbulence Training and look what happened to their belly fat. Now please go get me some more comfort food…

“Hi Craig - First, I LOVE your program. In just under two weeks, I have already started seeing definition - that has been my goal for as long as I have been working out (a LONG time). Keep up the GREAT work, and thanks!”
Susan Siceloff

“I lost 14 pounds this month and the weight is just falling off me. My wife says I now look like when we first met and I still have more to go. I can fit into my old jeans again which is a big deal for me. I just cut back on starches and bread and do your routine 2-3 times a week. I never thought in a million years that just 10-20 minutes of weight training followed by some cardio would get me such steady results. I even cheat a bit on the weekends.”
Billy Williams

==> http://www.turbulencetraining.com/

Vince DelMonte is the author of Your Six Pack Quest found at http://www.YourSixPackQuest.com

Hammer your body.

Tests your commitment.

Toss you in the hurt box.

Beat down on your mind.

Involve a high level of sacrifice.

Is NOT easy.

But it’s WORTH IT.

For confidence and pride

Now it’s YOUR turn…

Vince DelMonte is the author of Your Six Pack Quest found at http://www.YourSixPackQuest.com

Vince DelMonte is the author of Your Six Pack Quest found at http://www.YourSixPackQuest.com

Vince’s new training program Six Pack Quest will teach you what exercises you must do to get the best 6 pack possible and the right diet to get a six pack fast. If you want to know how to get a perfect six pack then Vince is the man to learn from. He will tell you the truth about 6 pack abs.

‘Vince Delmonte - Your Six Pack Quest’.

It’s true - it’s a scientific fact.

What exactly does this mean? Well, it’s quite simple:

You develop muscle and strength (abs included) as an adaptive response to a specific stimulus (a workout or exercise routine).
By David Grisaffi
www.flattenyourabs.net

You “ask” your body to perform a certain exercise or workload, and if it hasn’t been asked to perform this type of work before, your body says to itself, “what the heck is this??? We’ve never had to do THIS before. We’d better prepare ourselves for the next time this happens by adapting and getting stronger and adding some more muscle.”

And that, in a nutshell, is how muscles develop: Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands (also known as the S.A.I.D. Principle)

Once the adaptation has taken place, your body is prepared to handle it the next time. And so if you repeat that same exercise again, in the same volume and intensity, since you have already adapted… guess what…

NO FURTHER MUSCLE DEVELOPMENT TAKES PLACE!

At this point, you’re just doing maintenance.

To continue to develop the muscles further, you must impose another, NEW stimulus which will again cause another adaptive response

It makes perfect sense, right?

So my questions to you are:

(1) How often do you change your workout programs?
(2) When you change your workouts, to you advance (use progression) to the next higher level of difficulty?’
(3) Are you satisfied with maintaining your abs and waistline the way they look right now, or do you want to take them to another level?”

If you haven’t been changing your workouts often, or if you have been changing them but you’re not sure if you’re using progression properly, and if you’re NOT satisfied with maintaining your abs the way they look now, then here’s what you need to do:

You must keep “surprising” your body with new, and progressively more challenging workouts.

I can’t emphasize this enough. You must change your workouts regularly. The more advanced you are (the longer you’ve been training), the more often you must change your workouts and continue to challenge yourself.

Until now, the trouble has been that most people don’t know how to progressively increase the difficulty of their workouts. Most people also don’t know very many exercises.

If you survey 100 people about their ab exercise programs, 95% of them will tell you that they do crunches, leg raises sit ups and maybe some ab machines as their primary exercises.

Yes, a few people have started catching on to core training and swiss balls, but even they don’t realize there are DOZENS more exercises you can do for core and on the ball.

The solution is twofold:

1. Exercise variety (you need a “menu” of exercises to choose from)
2. Progression (including progressive overload)

The reason I created my program Firm & Flatten Your Abs was to help provide both of these two variables which will ensure that you get the ab development you want.

Firm and Flatten Your abs contains 7 levels of ab exercise workout programs, each a little more difficult than the one before. After that, the possible combinations are endless.

Firm and Flatten Your Abs also contains nearly 50 ab and core conditioning exercises - and I can assure you - you have probably never even seen most of these unless you are a fitness professional by trade.

Here’s the best part of all:

Not long ago I launched the 2nd edition of the Abs ebook.

The Firm And Flatten Your abs ebook has increased in size from 60 to 180 pages and includes more information, more questions answered, more photographs, and more exercises than ever before.

The program comes with an ironclad 8 week, money back guarantee which is more than enough time for you to try these exercises and see for yourself how much of a difference they really make in helping you carve out a rock hard midsection and strong core.

When you have this many exercises to choose from, you not only can keep making steady progress, you can also keep your workouts fresh and interesting and say goodbye to boring sit up and crunch routines.

Again, I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to vary your workouts and have the ability to progressively advance your exercises in degree of difficulty if you want to keep getting better and better results in your abdominal development. You now have the tool to do just that right at your fingertips.

To get your copy of the new 2nd edition of Flatten your abs, with 7 levels of exercises and nearly 50 abdominal and core exercises, visit

http://www.flattenyourabs.net

Sincerely,

David Grisaffi
Author, Firm And Flatten Your Abs

About The Author

David Grisaffi majored in physical education and is a certified high performance exercise kinesiologist with the prestigious CHEK institute. David holds a total of 6 certifications, he is a high school wrestling and baseball coach as well as an independent trainer and strength coach, known especially for his work with professional boxers and golfers. David is the author of Firm And Flatten Your Abs an online best seller which teaches you how to lose body fat and develop “six pack abs’ while improving strength, function and athletic power at the same time. You can contact David or learn more about his programs at www.FlattenYourAbs.net

“How do I get great abs” is still BY FAR the most frequently asked question I receive out of the 30,000+ emails that come into my office every month. No doubt, it’s because abs are the one body part that most people are the most frustrated with. Although their questions are often phrased differently and each person’s situation seems unique, my answer to “how do I get great abs” is almost always the same and you’re about to hear it…

Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
Fat Loss Coach
www.BurnTheFat.com

“1,000 Sit-Ups And Crunches A Day and Still No Abs!”

One question I received recently REALLY got my attention because a young guy told me he was doing 1,000 crunches and sit ups a day and said he still couldn’t see his abdominals. He wrote:

“Tom: I have been working out for around a year now and I cannot get my lower abs into any type of shape. I’m starting to see my upper abs a little bit, which is great, but despite doing 900 various crunches, ab roller, and 100 sit-ups four days a week, along with my regular workout on the weights, I still have a
tire around my waist.

What else can I do to get abs?”

What did I tell him? Well, I gave him the same answer I’ve given thousands of people over the years, which is the only true “Secret” to great abs…

It takes training to increase strength, build endurance and DEVELOP the abdominals, but to SEE the definition in your abdominals - or any other muscle group for that matter - is almost entirely the result of low body fat levels.

This may sound counter-intuitive, but if you can’t see your abs, it’s not an issue of “muscle development” at all. You simply have too much body fat covering up the ab muscles. The lower abdominal area also happens to be the one place that most people - especially men - store the body fat first.

There’s a Scientific Reason Why Your Lower Ab Flab Is The Last Place To Go:

Most people don’t have their fat distributed evenly throughout their bodies. Each of us inherits a genetically determined and hormonally-influenced pattern of fat storage just as we inherit our eye or hair color. In other words, the fat seems to “stick” to certain areas more than others.

There’s a scientific reason for this. Your fat cells are not just inert “storage tanks” for excess fuel. They are actually endocrine glands which send and receive signals from the rest of the body. You could say that your fat cells “talk to your body” and your body “talks to your fat cells.” This occurs through a hormone and receptor system.

For body fat loss to occur, you must first get the fat cell (adipocyte) to release the fat into the bloodstream. THEN, the free fatty acids must be delivered to the working muscles where they are burned for energy.

For fat to be released, the hormone adrenaline (epinephrine) must be secreted and send a signal to your fat cells. Your fat cells receive this hormonal signal via adrenaline receptors called adrenoreceptors.

Fat cells have Beta 1 (B1) and Alpha 2 (A2) receptors. B1 receptors are the good guys. They activate hormone sensitive lipase, the enzyme that breaks down the fat and allows it to be released into the bloodstream to be burned. A2 receptors are the bad guys. They block the fat-releasing enzymes in the fat cell and encourage body fat formation.

How Body Fat Storage Patterns Affect You And Keep Your Abs From Showing

What’s the point of all the physiology? Well, it turns out that in men, the lower abdominal region has a higher concentration of A2 receptors, so this gives us one possible explanation of why the lower abdominal region is often the first place the fat goes when you gain it, and the last place it comes off when you’re losing it. (Incidentally, the fat in women’s hips and thighs is also higher in A2 receptors).

This situation is dictated by genetics and by the hormonal and enzymatic pathways we discussed.

Think of ab fat like the deep end of the swimming pool. No matter how much you protest, there is no way you can drain the deep end before the shallow end. However, don’t let this discourage you. Lower ab fat WILL come off, it will simply be the last place to come off. First place on - last place off.

This helps to explain why abdominal exercises have little impact on body fat loss. It’s a huge mistake to think that hundreds or thousands of reps of ab exercises will remove lower abdominal fat, except to the degree that it burns calories and contributes to the calorie deficit. What removes the fat - all over your body - is a calorie deficit and that comes from decreasing food intake, increasing activity, or a combination of both.

What I suggested to this young man was cutting back the ab training, spending the time he was wasting on excess ab exercises for more intense, calorie-burning cardio and weight training for the rest of the body. I also suggested he do an accounting of his food intake, get his nutrition in order and decrease his calories slightly if necessary.

As it turned out, his diet was a mess, and as nutrition experts like to say, “You can’t out-train a lousy diet.”

It’s a monumental error to think that 1,000 reps of ab work a day will make your abs finally “pop” when your diet is a disaster and that’s leading to fat storage. It’s not that ab exercises aren’t important. But all the ab exercises in the world won’t help as long as you still have body fat covering the muscles. You can’t “spot reduce” with abdominal exercise and YOU CAN’T SEE YOUR ABS THROUGH A LAYER OF BODY FAT!

In part two of this series, I’ll reveal my championship-winning ab workout routine, and my secret for how to use cardio for MAXIMUM fat burning.

Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
Fat Loss Coach
www.BurnTheFat.com

P.S. If you would like to finally see your abs by burning bodyfat using my best-selling fat loss program, check out: www.BurnTheFat.com

Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
Fat Loss Coach
www.BurnTheFat.com

Personally, I only do about 15 minutes of ab work two times per week, with anywhere from two to four exercises for about 10-25 reps per exercise. Forget about thousands of reps of sit ups — it’s a waste of time. The reason my abs look the way they do is not from endless repetitions, but because I get my body fat down into the single digits with a highly specialized fat-burning diet program.

Here’s a recent ab routine that I’ve used (for bodybuilding and ab-development purposes). I do this routine only twice a week and I change the exercises approximately every month so my body doesn’t adapt. I prefer slightly higher rep range than other muscle groups, but as you can see, it is far from doing a thousand reps a day.

A1. Hanging leg raises
3 sets, 15-20 reps

Superset to:

A2. Hanging knee ups (bent-knee leg raises)
3 sets, 15-20 reps
(no rest between supersetted exercises A1 & A2, 60 sec. between
supersets)

B1. Weighted swiss ball crunches (or weighted cable crunches)
3 sets, 15-20 reps

Superset to:

B2. Incline bench reverse crunches
3 sets, 15-20 reps
(no rest between supersetted exercises B1 & B2, 60 sec. between
supersets)

How To Use Cardio For MAXIMUM Fat-Burning

Times have changed since the Aerobics revolution of the 1970’s and 1980’s. For years, aerobics was the darling of the fitness world. Then scientists began to acknowledge the benefits of weight training - for everyone, not just for bodybuilders.

Recently, the pendulum has swung the other direction and we’ve actually started hearing fitness “experts” suggesting that cardio should be kept to a minimum or even avoided completely. That’s the way things tend to go in the fitness world - they swing back and forth in trends, from one extreme to another.

Lots of cardio or no cardio.

I suggest you avoid trend-hopping and pay close attention to what actually works, by people who know what they are talking about (such as bodybuilders, who are the leanest muscular athletes in the world).

Doing nothing but cardio is a mistake.

But cutting our cardio completely is also a mistake. The truth lies in the middle. Maximum fat burning occurs when you combine cardio training and weight training together.

Those who are genetically gifted with above average metabolisms will find that a slight drop in food intake and just a few days a week of cardio will usually do the trick. However, most people who are struggling with fat loss (sometimes referred to as “endomorph” body type) are simply NOT burning enough calories to get the results they want.

The answer for them is more activity to burn more calories.

For health and weight maintenance, I would suggest 3 short cardio workouts per week, about 20-30 minutes per session.

But for maximum fat loss, I recommend 4-7 days per week of cardio or other physical activity for 30-45 minutes (based on results), at a moderate pace. You can mix up the type of cardio you do, or choose the type you enjoy the most - stationary cycling, stairclimbing, elliptical machines, aerobic classes and other continuous activities are all excellent fat burners (it doesn’t have to be indoors or on a cardio machine).

If time efficiency is a concern for you, you could do 2-3 of those cardio workouts as high intensity interval training and you’ll achieve very good results even with briefer workouts. Even as little as 20-25 minutes per session can get real results IF your intensity level is high enough.

Remember, seeing your abs is about low body fat.

Low body fat is about burning calories and creating a calorie deficit.

The calorie deficit is created by increasing the number of calories you burn and or decreasing the amount of calories you take in from food. Increasing intensity is one way to burn more calories in less time.

Let me reiterate what I said in the introduction. The reason my abs look the way they do is not solely from my training program, but because I get my body fat down into the single digits with a highly specialized fat-burning diet program.

Proper nutrition strategies are essential for revealing your abs, which is why the final installment of this series will be solely about nutrition. Now read the next part in this series where I reveal my 6 Nutrition Secrets For Great Abs.

Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
Fat Loss Coach
www.BurnTheFat.com

P.S. If you’d like to learn more about fat loss training and getting your body fat level low enough so that you can finally show off your 6-pack abs, then be sure to take a look at the Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle program.