Conrad recommends doing cardio intervals for two reasons. First, you won't have to spend as much time doing cardio because intervals change your body in shorter periods of time. Second, because intervals force your body to switch gears quickly, "you'll burn more calories while exercising and throughout the day," she says. You can do your cardio on a treadmill or outside, as long as you have a watch handy.
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The Ultimate Treadmill Interval Routine
Complete the routine below four times a week. It takes 15 minutes total.
Jog for 5 minutes -- Speed: 6.5, Incline: 0
Walk for 5 minutes -- Speed: 3.4, Incline: 15
Jog slowly for 15-30 seconds -- Speed: 4.5, Incline: 15
Walk for 15-30 seconds -- Speed: 3.4, Incline: 15
*Repeat the 15-30 second slow jog/walk routine 5 times.
Jog for 30 seconds -- Speed 6.5, Incline 0
Run for 30 seconds -- Speed: 7.5, Incline: 0
Run for 15 seconds -- Speed 8.5, Incline: 0
Run for 15 seconds -- Speed 9.5, Incline: 0
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The Ultimate Outdoor Intervals Routine
Grab a watch and hit the pavement or trail. Do this cardio routine four times a week. It takes 20 minutes total.
Jog for 30 seconds
Sprint for 30 seconds
*Repeat these intervals for the full 20 minutes.
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How to strength train
When it comes to strengthening your muscles to get a great-looking body, "get off the [weight] machines at the gym," says Conrad. If becoming a body builder isn't your goal, these are a waste of time, she says. The key to getting perfectly toned is to do "exercises that engage many muscles at the same time." There are three (yep, only three!) exercises she recommends you do four times a week (after completing your cardio routine) to get great abs. Do each of them until you can't do any more, which means you'll gradually build the number of reps you're able to do. Always remember the goal is to work your muscles to fatigue. That's when you see the best, fastest results.
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Strengthening exercise No. 1: Pull Ups
Mix up your grip from time to time to keep the exercise fresh (palms facing you, facing away, palms facing each other, etc.). These are super tough, so use a machine that allows you to do assisted pull ups to make them bearable.
Wouldn't it be great if the hundreds of gimmicky ab workouts for women like the Ab Rocket and Belly Burner actually did what they claim? That we could get the flawless tummies we see in infomercials without having to do much of anything? Now that would be heaven on earth.
Well, there's good news: "You don't have to do 500 crunches in order to get a great-looking stomach," says celebrity fitness and lifestyle expert Ashley Conrad. But the bad news is there really is no magic ab trick, she says.
Nutrition and cardio are still the king and queen of the perfect-ab kingdom. You must reduce fat around your midsection and do various ab workouts for women in order to have nice-looking tummy. So if that's the case, how many hours must we spend chained to the treadmill in order to get abs we're proud to flaunt in a bikini? And isn't there anything else we can do to speed up the process?
Read on for the answers. This easy-to-follow belly-flattening program created by Conrad will put you on the path to better abs without making you a slave to the gym. Simply implement this cardio and muscle-strengthening routine along with the key nutrition tips and within days you'll start to notice a difference. After a few weeks you'll actually see true transformation. Keep reading to get started �
