5 Exercises to Flatten your Tummy

Flattening your tummy takes real education and commitment. It also requires a combination of methods. These need to include controlling your diet, doing calorie-burning cardio, and doing specific exercises to flatten the tummy.

In this article, we’ll lay out five of the best tummy-flattening exercises to help reduce your waist size. We’ll also offer an overview of how to approach your nutrition and calorie-burning cardio to provide a full picture of how to flatten your tummy. 

How to Eat for a Flat Tummy

To achieve fat loss in your tummy area, you need to achieve a daily negative calorie balance. That means that you are burning more calories every day than you are taking in. When you are doing that, you will be using stored body fat to meet the energy needs that are not being met by food. 

To figure out how many calories you need to meet your energy needs, (your daily maintenance level), use this calculator. 

Flat Tummy Cardio

Steady-state cardio is not an effective fat-burning strategy. In addition to being ineffective, it will soon lead to a steady state, where the body has adjusted to the workload and tries to conserve energy. 

High-Intensity interval Training (HIIT) is a far more effective form of cardio for weight loss. HIIT involves switching between short intense sprint sessions and short periods of active recovery. We recommend doing your HIIT on the treadmill. After a 2-minute warmup, sprint for 20 seconds, then rest for 10 seconds. Repeat this 7 more times then finish with a 2-minute cooldown.

Flat Tummy Exercises

Plank

Position yourself face down on an exercise mat, resting on your elbows and your toes. Maintain a straight line from your head to your toes as you hold for the required length of time. Contract your core and do not allow your butt to rise up.

Touch Toe Abs

Lie on an exercise mat with your legs out straight and your arms extended beyond your head. Now pivot at the hips and tense your core to bring your torso up and your hands to your toes. Lower and repeat. Maintain a neutral spine throughout this action. 

Standard Crunch

Lie on an exercise mat with your knees bent and your hands alongside your ears (do not clasp your hands together). Now tense your abs as you crunch up with your shoulders and head. Do not lift your mid-spine off the floor. 

Seated Ab Circle

Sit on your butt with your hands supporting your body behind you. Bend your knees slightly, keeping your legs together and lift your feet slightly off the floor. Now, hinging from the hip, form a circle with your legs, moving them in a clockwise motion.  Maintain a neutral spine throughout.

Hanging Leg Circles

Hang from a pull-up bar with your feet together and knees slightly bent. Things at the hips to bring your legs up and around in a circular motion, going in a clockwise direction. Do not swing your upper body as you do this movement. 

Wrap Up

Perform these five tummy flattening exercises as a circuit, where you move from one to the next with no rest. Do each exercise for 45 seconds. Rest for two minutes at the end of the circuit and then do it again. Work up to completing three rounds of this circuit.