Faster Results with Ab Workout Finishers

How to Get Faster Results with Ab Workouts Finishers

I actually stumped a friend of mine.

She told me while I was waiting for a client, “well, I worked out, so I’m going to come back later today and do my cardio because I have to get to work”.  She confided in me that she was wanting to drop some weight, especially in her belly,  before “lake season” got here, because she’s a big fan of going out on her friends’ boat during the spring and summer.

I then told her that she didn’t have to come back to do any cardio.  I actually told her, “You know, you can get faster results with a couple of tweaks and getting here a few minutes sooner … all without having to do any cardio”.

You should have seen the look on her face. She was puzzled.  Then it hit her.  She knew where I was heading.  “You’re going to talk about metabolic finishers, aren’t you?”.  I replied with, “well, duh”.  But I also told her I would look at her program and tweak it a little bit to improve her results.

There wasn’t any big overhaul needed… just some adjustments.  I would hate for her to have to learn a whole new program.  That can be intimidating.  I also wanted to adjust it to where she can focus on her belly fat, which she was concerned about. She just needed ab workout finishers.

Fix the Warm-up

The first thing I asked her about was the way she warmed up.  Unfortunately, she did what most people do, which was hop on the treadmill for 5-10 minutes watching MTV’s Cribs.  You’re not missing anything.  It’s a mansion.  There’s a bulldog.  There’s a pool.  The countertops are made of gold and the fridge blends in because it has cabinet doors, too.  The end.

I told her to put in bodyweight exercises that will better prepare her body for the workout.  We plugged in Prisoner Squats, Arm Crosses, Pushups, Planks and more.  This will improve her workout performance, and due to that, she will burn more calories.  The warm-up was fixed.

Minor Tweak to Some Exercises

She actually had a pretty good program going for her.  We just made some exercises a little tougher.  We replaced the DB Squat with the DB Split Squat. I like elevating exercises to single limb movements.  They can be an effective change for fat loss.  Another thing we looked at was her Incline DB Chest Press.  She was amazed at the difference it made when doing a 1-Arm DB Incline Chest Press.  She never knew she could feel her abs work when performing a chest exercise.

Now the ab exercises – they were pretty rough…the sit-up machine and DB Side Bends.  I replaced those with Stability Ball Rollouts and Side Planks w/ Leg Raises.  That would be a big boost to her ab exercises, working her core more effectively, all without hurting her back like machines and DB Side Bends can.

The Finish for Better Results

Knowing she was concerned about her belly fat, I told her to knock out the cardio.  She was bummed to find out that excessive use of cardio increases your appetite.  That explained some of the cravings and munchies she was having.  I told her to incorporate some metabolic ab finishers after her strength session, which is a combination of intervals without cardio equipment and effective ab training to shed belly fat and increase your metabolic rate.  I had her try this one:

The Swingin’ Core Ab Finisher

Do the following superset 5 times, resting for 30 seconds between supersets

KB/DB Swings (20)
Alligator Crawl (20 seconds)

Heart rate up?  Check.  Working the abs and blasting belly fat?  Check. Using incomplete recovery for optimal results?  Check.  Elevating metabolism so she’ll rock the 2-piece?  Check.

That’s the idea behind an ab finisher – to get the calorie-burning benefits of a finisher, along with placing in the latest proven ab exercises to trim the waist.  And needless to say, she was  pleased to find out that she didn’t have to perform any “2-a-days” by coming back later in the day and performing cardio.

I told her by using a combination of a good diet, a solid workout program and using these metabolic ab finishers, she would be all set when it comes time to hit the lake on the boat.  By using finishers, she got to save time and spend more time in the waves drinking a cold one (bottled water… what were you thinking?).

If you’re using metabolic resistance training and you make these few tweaks to your favorite workout program, you will get faster results.  It’s actually a pretty easy tweak if you think about it.  Simply leave work about 10 minutes earlier or skip hitting that snooze button.  Boom?  Boom.

Bam,

Mike (Mikey) Whitfield
Certified Turbulence Trainer
Creator, Ab Workout Finishers