Here’s an exciting feature of February I learned about yesterday from Laura’s blog, Absolut(ly)Fit: In addition to being Black History Month and Heart Health Month, it’s also....drum-roll, please..... “National” Ab Month!! Hooray!
(Although, I must say, we’ve designated a lot of focus groups to the year’s shortest month, right?)
I love this idea and the more I think about it, the more I love it.
Here's why:
1. I think Ab workouts are probably my favorite exercise to do. I have a long torso, for being a shorter gal, so I struggle with carrying extra weight around my middle. (Aside from my butt, it’s always the last part of me to look toned. Even when I’m thinner, I still have some love-handley bits.) So, doing ab workouts make me feel like I’m actually making a significant change in my body’s shape.
2. You can quickly feel and see the results. If you’re challenging yourself, your abs will be sore the next day, and the muscles tend to appear pretty fast, especially in your upper abdominals. It is always a great motivator to see your body actually changing for the better!
3. Ab workouts are pretty easy to do. You can do them almost anywhere, with little space and little to no equipment. So, if you’re traveling, short on time, or can’t get to a gym, you can still squeeze in an ab-workout.
4. Also, you can easily adjust the difficulty to make the workout as easy or as challenging as you want. Just starting out? You can talk yourself into doing 12 crunches a day and gradually add on as you get stronger. Or, if you're more advanced, throw some ankle-weights on and do double crunches or do sidebends with heavier weights. There are so many variations, it’s hard to get bored.
5. Lastly, I think February is the BEST month for this. January is a bit overwhelming, at least for me. On January 1st, after having spent the past 31+ days since Thanksgiving shamelessly gorging myself on an endless parade of heavy dinners, cocktail parties, cakes (my birthday is in December) wines, cheeses, hams, cookies, pies, casseroles, dips and similar, I, like the rest of America vow to clean up my act in the new year. A strict detox program is enforced, or at least attempted, for the next few weeks. The problem is, January is usually almost as busy as December. It’s also dark, cold and sometimes very snowy or icy. All factors which make me prefer to curl up in a snuggie with a crockpot full of macaroni and cheese and a large spoon. Not that it’s impossible to achieve our January resolutions we've set, but it’s certainly not easy. Then, like a guiding light, comes Ab Month. A short month. A month when you finally notice that the days are getting ever so slightly longer. And just focusing on one thing, like abdominals, makes a fitness goal seem much more manageable. Maybe I can’t always fit in 5-6 60 minute workouts a week. Maybe I can’t increase my running by 3 miles a week, every week. I can do something “abbie” a few times a week—maybe every day! It’s more manageable. It’s a smaller, more focused goal. And on a cold dark morning, it’s easier to talk myself into 15 minutes of Abs than a 4 mile run.
There are 28 days in February. I’m going to try to do some kind of ab-related workout on at least 75% of the days (21 days.) It seems doable. I already did some this morning, “I Want Those Abs” from my favorite workout DVD, Tamilee Webb’s “I Want That Body.”
We will see how it goes. You never know, maybe March will be a self-proclaimed “butt month” (or something! ;)) Good luck and Happy National Ab Month!
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