Why crunches won't flatten your tummy

As a continuation of my previous post I feel it is important to talk about why doing crunches and core exercises will NOT help give you that flat stomach you’ve always dreamed of. Crunches are a type of exercise which are designed to strengthen your muscles. Muscles control your skeleton and allow you to move. Fat (or adipose tissue) lays over top of the muscles and isn’t affected by how strong the muscles are.

One pound of fat is equal to 3500 kcal (Calories), which means that in order to “burn” fat you are playing the game of Energy In vs Energy Out. This goes back to my previous post about eating nutritiously (check out Canada’s Food Guide) and exercising to use up excess energy (Calories).

I’m sure you’ve seen a commercial about an exercise machine that burns twice as many calories in half the time of the next leading machine. *sigh* Again, this is a false claim. It doesn’t matter what machine you are using, or what type of activity you are doing for that matter, what’s important is how hard you are working. If you are sweating, feeling your heart rate increase, feeling warm, maybe having a little trouble talking or holding a conversation, then you are working in a moderate to intense zone that is perfect for using sugar and fat stores in your body (stay tuned for my next post about the Talk Test to determine the optimal zone for cardiovascular training).

So what types of activities can you do? Walking, running, swimming, fitness classes, cycling, muscular endurance resistance training… any activity that you can maintain for at least 20 minutes that allows you to keep your heart rate up. The longer and more intense you work the more calories you are using to fuel you (just be careful or over-training).

Side Note: It is actually dangerous to do a lot of abdominal exercises because you are strengthening the front of your torso and forgetting about your back. If you choose do a lot of core training, make sure the exercises balance the front, sides, and back of your torso in order to protect your spine from injury.