Steal the routine that a-listers use to trim and tone in record time. It’s so seriously effective, this will be the cheat sheet you keep!
We have very good news for you: “It’s 100 percent possible to see a difference in your abs in one week,” swears Astrid Swan, a celebrity fitness pro in Los Angeles. You just have to put in the work. But not the hours-on-the-elliptical or endless-crunches kind of work. “You shouldn’t have to exercise for more than 30 minutes at a time,” Swan says. “A half hour is plenty, as long as those minutes are intense and you use them smartly.” And Swan would know: She privately trains many famous clients, including a few Shape cover stars, who need last-minute ab toning to prep for big events or, say, bikini photo shoots. Now she’s sharing her magic formula for flatter abs in seven days with all of us.
KICK UP YOUR CARDIO
“High-intensity interval training is your abs’ best friend,”Swan says. It has been lab tested as a major belly-fat fighter: Women who did three HIIT workouts a week lost significantly more sub cutaneous belly fat (the stuff you can see and pinch, thus what you care about when in a time crunch) than women who did only steady-state cardio, according to a study from the University of New South Wales in Australia. The researchers say that’s probably because more fat is used for fuel during HIIT than steady-state.
This story is from the May 2016 edition of Shape Malaysia.
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This story is from the May 2016 edition of Shape Malaysia.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
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