Lose Belly Fat But Don't Do These Common Exercises! (5 Minute 10 Day Challenge)

hello health champions so many people want to lose belly fat and if that's you

you need to watch and understand this video

this is a 10-day challenge for five minutes a day to exercise

to lose belly fat and obviously this video is going to be a whole lot more

than just a five minute exercise video because we want to

understand how and why to do these exercises

after all why would you even exercise if you don't understand

what it is doing for you coming right up hey i'm dr ekberg i'm a holistic doctor

and a former olympic decathlete and if you want to truly master health

by understanding how the body really works

make sure you subscribe and hit that notification bell so you don't miss

anything so first of all listen very carefully to this

even though i'm a huge proponent of exercise

exercise is not going to be the primary way to burn

belly fat it can help but it's not the primary way

belly fat is a metabolic and hormonal condition

and if you have a belly like this top picture and you want to start looking

like the lower picture then crunches alone are not going to do

it not in a million years so why am i even

making this video on exercise and belly fat

and challenging you to do it because there are tremendous

benefits from doing it but also because there are so many bad videos out

there they're misleading they are wrong and worst of all they're

dangerous believe it or not when i started looking

at other videos on this topic i found about 10 videos on youtube that

had a hundred million views between them and they were all misleading wrong

and dangerous so let's look at why were they misleading because all of

them implied or even guaranteed that in just

a few minutes a day in very few days you'll get from this to this

and that is just plain false it's a straight out lie why are they wrong

because half the exercises they're doing anatomically have nothing to do

with the belly muscle with the stomach muscle

and most importantly why are they dangerous because

the people doing them have never been injured in their life they're young

and they're fit and they can get away with doing a lot of exercises

that you can't chances are if you have some belly fat

looking like the top picture here then you're not

20 years old you're not super fit and doing the exercise is wrong is more

likely to injure you and give you back pain than

provide any sort of benefit so in this video you're going to learn

to do it right you're going to learn why and how to get

results and most importantly how not to hurt

yourself so first we need just a little bit of anatomy because if we're going to

work these muscles we need to know where they are

and where they attach because otherwise it makes no

sense but i promise i'm going to keep it

simple and you're going to love this the stomach muscle that most people want

to work out is called the rectus abdominus

it attaches to the sternum or the chest bone and on the lower ribs

on the top portion and on the lower portion it attaches

to your pubic bone to your pelvis basically

and then you also have abdominal oblique muscles that assist with rotation

those are the stomach muscles that give you tone and a flat stomach and the

people want to work out and the very first thing to understand

about muscles is that muscles can only contract

muscles can only get shorter when they work

they can't push they can't extend they can't make themselves

longer alright so the way to work a muscle is to shorten it and you do that

by bringing the two attachment points closer together

so if you bring the rib cage the lower ribs

closer to your pelvis to your pubic bone you're gonna contract the abdominal

muscle and you're gonna work it out if you don't bring those two points

together then you're not really working out the

stomach muscle as a chiropractor i have seen literally

thousands of patients with low back pain and in most of those

patients the cause for their low back pain

is that their hip flexor muscles the iliopsoas muscle is

too tight and the stomach muscle is not strong enough so the iliopsoas is known

as the hip flexor the lower portion attaches

on the upper part on the inside of the thigh bone

and there's two parts the psoas attaches to the low spine

all the way from l4 to t12 and the lower portion is called iliacus

and it attaches on the pelvis so why are we going through this detail because

when you activate these muscles when you activate the hip flexor

then you're bringing the knee closer to the chest so it's called a hip flexor

but when you're bringing the knee up you're also

pulling the pelvis forward and you're bringing

the low back forward putting a certain stress on it

so the stronger the stomach muscle is the better it's going to be able

to attach right here on the pubic bone and counteract that motion

but if these muscles if the hip flexors get

too strong in relation to the stomach muscle

then we have a problem and there's three things

that are going to get the hip flexors overly tight

and the first thing is to have a sitting job

to be sitting eight hours a day have you heard of anyone like that

recently and the second thing is driving because when you're driving you're

obviously sitting down and in addition to that you're

activating your hip flexor by moving your leg from the gas to the

brake back and forth back and forth for however long

you're driving so if you're sitting and it's already tight

then the driving adds insult to injury and the third way is to do sit-ups

or abdominal exercises the wrong way so we're going to take a look at a few

clips of these very popular videos on youtube and we're going to talk about

what's really going on as you can see in this video she's

lifting the leg bringing it closer to the trunk

and because the leg is straight its weight

acts on a very long lever and puts a huge

load on the hip flexors then when the leg is lowered

the back arches because the hip flexor is pulling the low back

up and forward the stomach muscles are working passively to resist the arching

but it's primarily the hip flexors that are being worked and the more fatigued

you get the more strain you put on that low back her second exercise is

very similar except now she uses both legs at once

which puts an even greater strain on the low back

because she doesn't have any ground support and

if you remember what we said about working the abdominal muscles

you need to bring the pelvis closer to the chest

to work the abdominal muscles and that's just not happening

at all so both of these exercises are working the hip flexors

which is the last thing you need if you just drove your car home after

sitting at a desk for eight hours now you're just adding

insults to injury and here is another example of the same

thing as you can see the hip flexor is working

very hard against gravity but the pelvis is not moving toward the chest at all

so the stomach muscles are working passively but she's primarily

overworking the psoas and making it even stronger than the abdominal muscles

this example is a little bit different this exercise works

both the hip flexors and the abdominals she is

mostly working the hip flexors though but there is a moment when she is

curling up and her hips come off the floor that she

is actually shortening and working the abdominal

muscles quite a bit but notice here what happens to her low

back when she extends her legs parallel to the floor her back is

arching as a result of the strain on the hip

flexors and as she becomes more and more tired

she can no longer perform the exercise properly and she starts jerking her body

to get her hips up off the floor and then her back

arches even more because her stomach muscles

can't counteract that motion any longer and

this jerking and arching would be an absolute

nightmare for anyone with a back problem and in this example

she is doing a full sit up which again it works both abdominals and hip

flexors but it works hip flexors more than

abdominals and when she's on the floor on her back

she arches her back and then she whips her arms forward

making the hip flexor pull on the spine in a very abrupt explosive motion

when it's already in the arch position and this

is very very traumatic for the low back so hopefully that gives you a good

idea on what not to do and how to avoid getting hurt

but now the next question is does it work

and if so how does it work like we said it is mostly a metabolic problem when it

comes to belly fat so these girls have never had a

metabolic problem at all so it's really irrelevant

for them to burn belly fat what they're doing is toning and getting

more fit and that's absolutely a great thing

it just doesn't have a whole lot to do with burning belly fat which was the

topic of their videos and if you have a significant amount of

belly fat then the problem is about 95 metabolic

that you need to bring down your levels of insulin and cortisol

and you do that by reducing sugar and carbs

and by stabilizing blood sugar and reducing stress

but if exercise is only five percent of the solution

then why am i doing a video on this at all why am i

challenging you to exercise to burn belly fat and the reason is that five

percent is still five percent but much much more important is that it has

other tremendous benefits for the body that

can help indirectly and it's going to help

improve your brain and your quality of life everything that

you are everything that you know everything that

you do is about how healthy your brain is and in order

to keep your brain healthy you need to provide it three things most

people kind of understand the first one that's fuel we usually talk about that

as glucose or ketones the second one a lot of people get

that's oxygen that's why we're breathing but very few people understand that the

third component activation is not optional it is

absolutely crucial the purpose of the brain is to process

information the purpose of a muscle is to shorten

and perform work so when you work out in the gym

you're making your muscles stronger when you send

signals to the brain you make the brain stronger and where do those signals come

from well a lot of people think that you

should do crossword puzzles and play bridge and memorize things and that's

all good mental exercises will increase the

complexity and solidify your neural networks and

what's already there but it's not going to do a whole lot to

build new tissue and to drive the formation of new

circuits in order to build new tissue you need to

really juice up the brain you need to really drive in some signals there

and that's what you do with movement movement

provides 90 of all the signals that juice up your brain that provides

nutrition and keep your brain alive just how

important is exercise for the brain how important

is movement for the brain well let me put it this way in one

sentence things that don't move don't have brains the purpose of the

brain is to process and facilitate movement

if you don't move don't need a brain so pay really close attention because this

is where it gets really exciting how does this then how

does exercise and the brain affect fat

burning and fat loss and belly fat well when

you're moving then you're activating the whole brain

but mostly the frontal lobe and the frontal lobe is mostly

inhibitory it mostly turns things off

about 80 to 90 percent of what the frontal lobe does

is to receive information and then to turn off

other functions in the body to stabilize your state and one of the things it

turns off is stress and when it does that it

reduces cortisol so the stronger your frontal

lobe the more power you have in your frontal lobe

the better you're going to be able to turn off stress and reduce cortisol

it also turns off anxiety and depression do you know anyone who eats more who has

more cravings when they're anxious or depressed

right and it also controls impulses so it improves motivation

it improves willpower so all of these put together

is going to put you in a much better place to

control temptations and all of the factors

involved with having a good quality life and burning some belly fat and staying

strict to your goals now is there anything about these

muscles about the stomach and core muscles that is particularly

good for the brain well it turns out there is the core

muscles is what stabilizes the spine the spine is the bones but it has

muscles around the spine and muscles around the trunk

and if you recall that 90 of the signals that stimulate and keep the brain alive

originate from movement then most of these signals actually come from

the muscles in the spine the spine has so many

muscles it has three layers of muscles it has hundreds

of muscles if you add them all up and that provides

a tremendous amount of input to the brain so now if you have a

strong core musculature if you have very good

control of your core and if that core and the spine is

flexible now that's going to send a whole lot

more signals to the brain on a regular basis just through everyday

movements you're going to keep stimulating and firing and juicing

up that brain so let's look at some better examples of

how to properly strengthen your core in an

effective and safe way a plank works the whole core but it does

put some stress on the hip flexors so do it

first in your workout while you're fresh make sure you focus on keeping your low

back flat and don't sag and arch your back because if you do

that if you start sagging and you can't keep

your back flat then you could hurt yourself and it's

time to take a break next exercise is called an abdominal brace

so you start laying on your back you put your feet flat and your knees up

and if you relax your back you'll notice that probably be

a little gap under your lumbar spine under your low back

so first thing you do is you push your back

flat down on the ground so your whole spine contacts

the ground and then you tighten up your abdominals

and you increase the pressure downward as if there was a scale there and you're

trying to put some pressure on it so you start with your back flat

you tighten up your abs and you press your low back

down against the surface and you hold it for about

15 seconds you can increase the pressure as you get more familiar and more

fit now one place not to do this is in a bed because it's too soft and it

won't give you the proper support and stability so do 10 15 seconds at a

time rest a little bit and repeat two or

three times this is a simple exercise but it really

isolates the stomach muscles well you start with your back flat again

and then slowly slide your hands up on your thighs toward your knees

and of course you want to do this as a slow continuous motion

without any jerking and also notice if you recall how we talked about the

muscle shortening notice the ribcage is coming closer to the pelvis

without putting any strain on the low back or the hip flexor

it's going to feel pretty easy in the beginning but

you'll sure feel the burn if you keep going so try to do about

20 to 30 repetitions this is a diagonal crunch

we bring the elbow up to the opposite knee

so we're bringing the rib cage closer to the pelvis

and we're getting a very good isolation of the stomach musculature

and we're also bringing in the oblique stomach muscles because we have some

rotation to the motion it may look like this is

also involving the hip flexor because we're bringing the knee up

but there is no load on the hip flexor it's not

working against gravity so it's a very gentle

activation of the hip flexor of course we're also making sure that the back is

flat against the surface and that we're performing smooth and

controlled movements now we add in some lateral flexion or

some bending to the side again we start with

the back flat and then simply reach down and touch the

heel on the same side this motion provides some really

good signals for the brain and it helps restore range of motion

to keep your spine flexible especially if you've had some back

trouble before it's a good way to gently get back into it now this next one may

look easy but i assure you it is one of the toughest

ones that you can do but even so it's a very safe exercise and it works and

isolates the lower abdominals so you start out with your back flat

then you put your knees at a 90 degree angle

and you lift them straight up toward the ceiling

if it isn't moving at all in the beginning don't worry

you may have to work up to this one and also make sure that you don't

compensate for lack of strength with trying to

jerk or jump into the motion so if it's not moving at all don't worry

about it it's still a good exercise just contracting these muscles and making the

attempt is still very beneficial but if you do want to get some motion in

there you can make it easier there's an easier version if you curl up

just a little bit and bring the knees closer to your chest

then you can do it with a little more ease

but make sure to keep the movements slow and smooth

now let me introduce you to the game changer even though it's not an

abdominal exercise this one might be the most important

exercise you could do to burn belly fat like we said belly fat

is a metabolic problem and you reduce insulin by reducing sugar and carbs but

you can also increase growth hormone because

growth hormone is a fat burning hormone you do a short

workout a few minutes and then the hormone stays on for days

burning fat for you and the two ways to produce growth hormone

is fasting and high intensity interval training here's an example of

how to do it i'm starting out with a heart rate of 74

and then i start pedaling as hard as i can this is pretty heavy resistance

i go for about 15 seconds my heart rate is now 128

i get back on the bike and now it's 140 i keep alternating 15 second rest 15

second biking my heart rate goes up every time now

it's 148 149 back on the bike

and now we're over 150 let's see if i rest can i can push it

a little higher again so i go 15 seconds we get up to 155

so i can typically get my heart rate up to about 170 but on

a bike it is more difficult it's still a great workout though

but on this workout i didn't manage to get it higher than 157

but it took me a couple of minutes and made some

really good growth hormone so here's my challenge to you

you start today and you pick four five six exercises pick the

favorites that you're comfortable with that won't hurt you you try them out

and then you do them for about one minute each

you can do that and then you keep it up for 10 days and every three to five days

so two to three times during this 10 day period

you throw in a high intensity interval training workout

and you can do it on the bike just like i did or

if you're fit and healthy and you don't have any injuries you can do it

running up hills or running stairs or doing jumping jacks or anything

like that anything that works to get your heart rate up is

fine the bike is a very safe way to do it because you can hold on and there's

no pounding involved when you do the hit you can do it in

addition or instead of the abdominal

exercises your choice if you want to take

a break and get some rest from the abdominals that's fine if you feel

good enough to do both on one day that's great but don't do more than two or

three times in this 10-day period and i'm not going

to guarantee that you'll have a flat belly in 10 days but i will guarantee

that it is a great way to get on a new

habit and incorporate some exercise into your life if you enjoyed this video

i think you're really gonna love that one next thanks so much for

watching i'll see you next time