For us men, we all know a lot of our body fat gathers around our belly and creates the well known “love handles” that many of us have a LOT of trouble getting rid of. In fact, sometimes it seems downright impossible to get our midsection toned.
Luckily, your friends at Beach Baby are here to help! This article focuses on the best FREE workout videos, including easy to follow routines for men with no special equipment required, that will help us lose all of your annoying belly fat quickly.
Quick note: these are not full and comprehensive workout routines, but these free YouTube videos do offer some great suggestions that you can use to make your own routine and avoid the cost of hiring a trainer or dietician.
Guys – whatever your reason for wanting to do this, whether it be to have more ladies look at you, to have your wife stop nagging you, or to simply be healthier (or maybe all three) – we fully support you in your efforts! Let’s do this…
Video #1
Richard Huntley shares with us two quick exercises that do the job of helping us guys lose our spare tire, with no gym equipment needed except a workout mat.
Exercise 1 – Front plank combined with alternating leg raises x 5
Exercise 2 – Side planks while raising and lowering obliques x 5 (on either side)
As he mentions, we first need to get our diet under control before we can make any real progress. So, assuming that diet is A-OK and we’re consistently looking after ourselves nutritionally speaking, these two exercises he demonstrates can be very effective, as they target two of the main muscle groups that we want to focus on – abs, and obliques.
Video #2
In this video, Elliott Hulse spends some time talking about bulking up, but at about the 3 minute mark, he switches over to shedding unwanted fat.
His suggestions for doing this are very sensible:
Tip #1 – Go for an hour long walk on an empty stomach to start your day. This gets your day started with some powerful low-intensity cardio which will have a positive effect on the rest of your day. Elliott also listens to a good book, because, in his case, he is always looking to improve himself in some way. Of course, if an hour seems too long, try it for a shorter time. But also remember that the longer you do it, the more calories you burn, and the more fired up your metabolism is throughout the day!
Tip #2 – Keep track of your calories in relation to your basal metabolic rate. What is that? Well, it simply refers to the base number of calories your body needs at rest to function. If you can consume less calories than your BMR, you will lose weight one way or another.
Calculate your BMR here: https://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/bmr_calculator.htm
Tip #3 – Stop drinking / consuming sugar and drink more water! As Elliott mentions, fixing your diet is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, contributing factors to attaining a healthy body weight, so you need to think long and hard about your diet and getting that in check before doing anything else. In other words, if your diet is bad, nothing else will work!
Tip #4 – Cardio, and more cardio. As he mentions, men who practice shorter periods of high intensity cardio combined with low intensity cardio in longer stretches, will go a long way to losing that belly fat as well.
Tip #5 – Consistency. It takes time, so don’t give up. Like most things in life, consistency is key.
Video #3
Here, Jeff Cavaliere from Athlean-X gives us 8 minutes of no bull advice on how to get rid of 5 pounds of body fat in the fastest, most efficient way possible. If you watched the video, you’ll know that the helpful tips are flying fast and furious throughout the video, as Jeff lists off some of the top exercises to achieve a more chiseled physique by burning the most calories. They include:
- Burpees
- Battle Ropes
- Split Squat Jumps
- Jump Rope
Now, as great as all these exercises are, Jeff is ready in this video to crunch some numbers, and he explains that whichever of these exercises you decide to do, none of them are going to be able to conquer bad dietary choices. In fact, the point of this video seems to be stating that once you clean up your diet, the pounds will just slide off.
As we said before, this has been stated again and again, and it’s the truth that no amount of exercising can fight a bad diet, but only you know how good or bad your diet is. If you’re munching on gummy bears all the time, and you think that’s no big deal – think again! This is where it becomes important to understand the true nature of our diets and our caloric intake, which is another story altogether. That said, Jeff shows us a number of really solid moves that, if we do them consistently, is going to lead to a leaner, meaner body where no love handles can exist.
Video #4
Here is one more video with some great tips for losing the love handles from Jeff at Athlean-X. This time, Jeff talks about the muscle groups we need to work on to give us men that muscular, fat-free body we’ve always wanted.
Move #1 – The One-Armed Row
Talking about having bigger lats is where it’s at with this move. Jeff is saying that if we can widen our lats, our waists will by default start to shrink, even if it is more of a visual trick than anything. One-armed rows are a great way to build up and widen those lat muscles. One key point he mentions also, is to make sure you fully bring back the elbow, in order to fully work your lower lat, since this part of your lat is closest to your love handles, and if you build it up, it will maximize the difference in size between your waist and your lower lats. Awesome point!
Move #2 – Crunches, Sit Ups – Ab Training
Focusing on our abs will add to our appearance of having a chiseled look, although Jeff doesn’t specifically go into which ab exercises we need to do in this video (check his channel to find those), he just emphasizes the importance of working on our abs so we can begin to change our appearance.
Move #3 – Follow the fibers (oblique workout with a band)
This is a cool move! In order to get that V taper or those V lines in the oblique area, you can work your external obliques with a simple band. As Jeff says, if you follow the fibers in your external obliques, and use the band to pull in the same direction as those fibers, you will eventually see results. Because this is where the love handles like to hang around, it is a great spot to target, because the more aware of your obliques you become, the less you’ll want them covered in fat.
