Working on getting a flat stomach is usually on the top of everyone’s body wish list but most people think that just doing abdominal exercises will get you the stomach of your dreams. Unfortunately that is not the case, as core exercises just don’t burn enough calories to burn the fat off of your stomach.

You need to incorporate other high calorie burn exercises such as cardio and strength training to make sure you are cutting down on that fluffy layer of fat that is keeping those toned abs hidden. So, instead of having to do two different routines, one for the stomach and another for fat loss, we have put together this cardio and abs routine to tackle body fat from two different angles at the same time. Not only does this workout train your abdominal muscles but it will also push up your metabolism with cardio to burn more calories and fat.

This routine is intended to be done only once a day 3-4 times per week but it can easily be coupled with other workouts to get even more of a calorie burn. If you only have one time per day that you can workout then adding another workout to this 13-minute routine will help to burn more calories. We suggest adding another workout such as a HIIT routine or some type of strength training to really focus on burning calories at an elevated rate and boosting your metabolism for the next 24 to 48 hours. However, if you have the time to break your workouts up (one in the morning one in the evening) then you could get even more of a passive calorie burn by bumping up your metabolism twice in one day. It may only end up causing an extra burn of 20-80 calories (depending on the length and intensity of your workouts) as compared to doing both workouts at the same time, but an extra 80 calorie burned, five days a week adds up to an extra 5.5 lb of fat loss over the course of a year on top of the weight loss from other workouts that you do.

So what about the actual burn associated with this workout? Though the energy expenditure fluctuates throughout this workout, the average burn is around 8-12 calories per minute giving this workout a total burn of 104-156 calories in this 13-minute routine.

Workout Structure
In this routine we have put together 8 different exercises, 4 of which are cardio exercises and another 4 that are abdominal exercises. Each follows a Tabata style, time based set of 20 seconds of the exercises followed by 10 seconds rest. Each exercise is done three times through with the above cycle before moving on to the next exercise.

Since this workout starts with relatively intense movements you should incorporate a warm up before you begin and be sure to do a proper cool down and stretching after you are done.

Jumping Jacks
Toe Touch Crunches
Reverse Lunges + Kicks
Plank Walks
Squat Hops
Figure 4 Leg Lifts (alternating)
Broad Jumps + 3 Hops Back
V Pulse Crunches