Stomach toning

[Krazyklee]

Hi, i am quite a sporty person but do not seem to be able to tone my stomach. I know sit-ups help but is there any other excercise that will work effectivly?

[Miss Inquiry]

This helps for me.
Lie on your back, both knees in the air at a 90 degree angle, extend you legs out straight infront of you, so they are parallel to the floor but a few cm off the floor, repeat this over and over. The slower you work the better for the stomach muscles. If you find it hard doing both legs at the same time, do them alternatly.
You also need to make sure you don't hurt your spine (if you do Pilates, you need a nuteral spine) if not, put a few fingers under the arch of your back when lying on the floor, and make sure you dont lift too far up, or drop down too far. If any of this hurts your back then don't do it.

[yolande]

I find running really tones the sides of my tummy, and swimming helps too. It might just be your shape though! No matter how much weight I lose I always have a little tum!

[Pootle]

A lot of it comes down to your diet and you will need to drop your body fat which is not an easy thing to achieve. If you do, you will then have to maintain it. Cut out rubbish food, alcohol, the usual suspects and plenty of cardio. When performing stomach exercises, as Miss Enquiry says, perform them slowly for maximum effect and really concentrate on working each rep correctly rather than knocking out 100 sit-ups for the sake of it. Also, vary the type of stomach exercise that you do, reverse hanging sit-ups are good; hang from a bar and pull your knees up to yur chest slowly using your stomach muscles. Good luck

[Rock'n'Roll]

Make sure your stomach is withdrawn when when going upwards. If you don't do them correctly you don't exercise the lower muscles

[ummmm]

And keep you're belly pulled in at all times to train your muscles to stay in