Hi, Everyone:  Here’s a cool guest post from James, a writer for bellyfat360.com.  He provides us with some great advice about fitness in this article and on his website.  If you’ve been wanting to start training in martial arts to help reach your fitness goals, James provides compelling evidence to begin as soon as you can!

Have a look and let us know what you think!

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Tired of belly fat? Martial arts can help!

Belly fat can be the bane to those who have it. It looks grotesque and is difficult to burn. A systematic approach and workouts are what can help belly fat burn away. Fitness experts recommend cardiovascular exercises, strength training and diet plans to help shed excessive belly fat. There is no denying that these methods help. However, these are not the only way one can lose belly fat. Belly fat can also be burned through martial arts.

You may question how could that be possible? It is understandable if you have your doubts considering cardiovascular workouts combined with weight training and balanced diet have till now been touted as the best means for working out belly fat. But the fact that martial arts can do as good a job in burning belly fat as a proper belly fat reducing training program cannot be ignored.

To understand how this is possible we need to know what cardiovascular exercises do to the body. While doing cardiovascular workouts almost all the muscles in the body are targeted simultaneously making the heart rate go up. Take any cardiovascular exercise and you will notice the workout involves the use of various body parts. Swimming, Cycling, walking, running, playing basketball – all these exercise routines follow one basic principle which is working out different parts at one time. This increases the heart rate and is said to give the body a better workout.

What does martial arts do other than train you with techniques of self defense? Martial arts also involve the use of different muscles in the body. All martial arts be it Judo, Karate, Taekwondo or any other involve a lot of vigorous and well timed movements. The kicks, the chops and all the other movements involved in martial arts are working out the whole body the way cardiovascular exercise do. In fact the workout is as strenuous as a cardiovascular workout. The heart rate goes up and fat is converted into energy by the body for fuelling the workout. This has the same effect on the body as the belly fat burning workout advised by a trainer.

No such thing as spot reduction!

There is no exercise that can target belly fat alone. In fact there is no exercise that can help you target fat in any particular place in the body. As you exercise excess fat is utilized by the body for fueling the exercise. Fat from all over the body is used as it gets converted into energy. While training for martial arts the same thing happens. The body uses excess fat by burning it for energy to be used during the martial arts training. Martial arts training can be compared to a cardiovascular workout, because it is essentially doing the same thing to the body that cardio workouts do.

Martial arts also target the core muscles. As mentioned earlier martial arts training routines are strenuous and need a lot of power and thrust. The body gets a complete workout during the training. The workout involves not just burning of belly fat, but fat from all over the body. Martial arts training are exercise forms that combine the benefits of both cardio and strength training. The motion of exercise also tones and defines the muscles automatically. It creates more balance and gives the body definition.

Author Bio:
James is a fitness lover and he loves to blog on diet plans, tips and exercises that help you know how to lose belly fat effectively. You can visit his blog at http://bellyfat360.com/how-to-lose-belly-fat/