15 Minutes to Belly-button Ring Worthy Abs

What are the best ways to get them [my abs and thighs] in shape pretty quickly but without taking over 15 minutes a day? And I’m 5′4; 125lbs and was considering getting my belly button pierced, opinions?

It is definitely possible for you to do something 15 minutes a day and see results– as long as your session is of a high intensity (meaning hard)!

You should stick to two basic types of training:

1. Total Body weight training.

These exercises consist of compound movements-these are movements that involve multiple muscle groups:

Think squats, lunges, deadlifts (picking stuff up off the floor), bench presses, rows, chin ups (assisted), and you can’t go wrong. If you lack fancy equipment or the time to head to the gym, you can perform movements that simply use your bodyweight–squats, lunges, pushups, and planks can be done anywhere-put all these exercises back to back in a circuit and should be breathing hard..

2. Interval Training (high intensity)

Rather than doing long, slow, boring cardio for 60 minutes (who has the time?? not you!), you should use high intensity interval training.

For example, on a treadmill, you could go for a minute and a half at a moderate pace like a slow jog or walk (say 3.5 mph–this is your “rest pace”). Followed by 20 seconds of an all out or close to all out sprinting (Say 10 mph–this is your work pace). After the 20 seconds, go back to your rest pace. Doing this for 7 intervals (an interval includes the work and rest period) would take about 15 minutes.

Note: I picked the speeds above as an example, but feel free to adjust your intervals to your fitness level. Your work interval should be strenuous enough so that you couldn’t go much longer than the designated time.

You can apply this principle to other things like the Elliptical, Stair Climber, Rowing machine, running outside, etc. As long as you have a rest phase and a work phase.

Just make sure that during your 20 second phase, you’re busting your butt! I’m talking, when you get to the end of the interval, you should be absolutely spent–use the rest phase to recover so you can do it again.

Feel free to play with the times if you want to change it up-a 20 second (more advanced) work phase is going to be more intense than a 40 second work phase.

Time to get to work!!

These above two types of training are meant to be hard, as they squeeze a lot of work into a short time period–the other goods news is that every new study that comes out has shown this type of training to be MORE effective than traditional cardio in that it breaks down muscle and stimulates EPOC, which speeds up your metabolism even after your workout!

Simply put, your body will keep burning more Calories throughout the day, and your metabolism will increase–meaning more fat burning–meaning abs that show.

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