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So, I'm perusing the interwebs for fitness articles, and I happened across one titled "Four Exercises to a Flat Belly," so I clicked to take a peak inside.
My first inclination was "that's got to be some crap 'do crunches this new magical way' article," and sure enough that's what I saw. Are people that obtuse that they STILL think crunches will flatten the abs? On that note, how can anyone still think that ab work alone will flatten the stomach?????
This is by far one of the more annoying things about this industry (one of the other ones being Gillian Michaels). How, with all of the science available on how to train the body, can an article like this slip through the cracks? Well, lucky for you, I read such science daily, and I'm going to share some with you right now:
AB WORK. WILL NOT. FLATTEN. YOUR STOMACH.
You know what will? Putting on muscle head to toe.
Not doing tricep kickbacks "to sculpt" the arms. NOT doing some bastardized crunch of some kind to "firm up your abs." And you sure as hell aren't going to "lengthen and tone" your muscles doing Pilates. Your muscles are a set length at birth, the reason the models in Pilates ads have long lean physiques is because THEY WERE BORN WITH THEM. If you weren't, sorry, it ain't gonna happen.
Here are the exercises selected for the best ways to flatten your belly:
Bosu Crunch
First of all, toss your Bosu in the Goodwill pile, I won't bore you with why you should in this piece, if you want to know click here. So, one of the highlights exercise is to "round your spine forward as you take your chest toward your pelvis." So, in order to do the crunch correctly, you must flex your spinal column to complete the movement on top of most people probably recruiting the hip flexors as well. And that's wrong btw, you should NEVER recruit your hip flexors in your ab work.
“There are only so many bends or a ‘fatigue life’, in your spinal disks,” says Stuart M. McGill, a professor of spine biomechanics at the University of Waterloo. "Inside each disk is a mucus-like nucleus. and if you keep flexing your spine and bending the disk over and over again, that nucleus slowly breaches the layers and causes a disk bulge, or a disk herniation.”
And to further support not doing crunches, ever:
"A herniated disk won’t show through your swimsuit, but it’s no fun, and can cause persistent back and leg pain, weakness, and tingling, says McGill (Stop Doing Sit-Ups: Why Crunches Don't Work Kate Dailey)."
The Ab Wheel
This is actually a decent exercise. The problem is the level of difficulty is so excruciatingly high that based on what I've seen, less than 50% of the population could actually do this without developing a low back or shoulder injury. The pike motion done correctly will involve quite a bit of core musculature, the downside is to stabilize this motion back to the starting point requires strength that most people simply just don't have. Why this is recommended to a general population makes no sense.
Cross Body Crunch
See above, and ad in rotational torque with the potential to herniate the vertebral discs. It is also pretty common to get quite a bit of hip flexor involvement instead of the abs with this.
"By taking a flexion movement and adding a loaded rotation component, you’re well on your way to sending yourself off to the disabled list. In fact, we’ve dubbed these types of exercises “disc herniators” and inform our clients that they should only continue to do these if they wish to help us finance our latest facility expansion (The Three Worst Abdominal Exercises for People with Back Pain).
Single Leg Bosu Stance
WHAT?? How does standing in place on one leg on an unstable surface burn fat? It doesn't that's how. It isn't a metabolic power movement that burns a ton of calories in the recovery phase.
Plus, most people don't possess the right neural sequencing to properly stabilize their hips to allow their foot to actually stay still on solid ground let alone on something that moves. There are so many muscular compensation patterns you can develop from this its ridiculous.
So, now that we know what WON'T work for fat loss, here is the actual science of weight loss..... In the next article!
My first inclination was "that's got to be some crap 'do crunches this new magical way' article," and sure enough that's what I saw. Are people that obtuse that they STILL think crunches will flatten the abs? On that note, how can anyone still think that ab work alone will flatten the stomach?????
This is by far one of the more annoying things about this industry (one of the other ones being Gillian Michaels). How, with all of the science available on how to train the body, can an article like this slip through the cracks? Well, lucky for you, I read such science daily, and I'm going to share some with you right now:
AB WORK. WILL NOT. FLATTEN. YOUR STOMACH.
You know what will? Putting on muscle head to toe.
Not doing tricep kickbacks "to sculpt" the arms. NOT doing some bastardized crunch of some kind to "firm up your abs." And you sure as hell aren't going to "lengthen and tone" your muscles doing Pilates. Your muscles are a set length at birth, the reason the models in Pilates ads have long lean physiques is because THEY WERE BORN WITH THEM. If you weren't, sorry, it ain't gonna happen.
Here are the exercises selected for the best ways to flatten your belly:
Bosu Crunch
First of all, toss your Bosu in the Goodwill pile, I won't bore you with why you should in this piece, if you want to know click here. So, one of the highlights exercise is to "round your spine forward as you take your chest toward your pelvis." So, in order to do the crunch correctly, you must flex your spinal column to complete the movement on top of most people probably recruiting the hip flexors as well. And that's wrong btw, you should NEVER recruit your hip flexors in your ab work.
“There are only so many bends or a ‘fatigue life’, in your spinal disks,” says Stuart M. McGill, a professor of spine biomechanics at the University of Waterloo. "Inside each disk is a mucus-like nucleus. and if you keep flexing your spine and bending the disk over and over again, that nucleus slowly breaches the layers and causes a disk bulge, or a disk herniation.”
And to further support not doing crunches, ever:
"A herniated disk won’t show through your swimsuit, but it’s no fun, and can cause persistent back and leg pain, weakness, and tingling, says McGill (Stop Doing Sit-Ups: Why Crunches Don't Work Kate Dailey)."
The Ab Wheel
This is actually a decent exercise. The problem is the level of difficulty is so excruciatingly high that based on what I've seen, less than 50% of the population could actually do this without developing a low back or shoulder injury. The pike motion done correctly will involve quite a bit of core musculature, the downside is to stabilize this motion back to the starting point requires strength that most people simply just don't have. Why this is recommended to a general population makes no sense.
Cross Body Crunch
See above, and ad in rotational torque with the potential to herniate the vertebral discs. It is also pretty common to get quite a bit of hip flexor involvement instead of the abs with this.
"By taking a flexion movement and adding a loaded rotation component, you’re well on your way to sending yourself off to the disabled list. In fact, we’ve dubbed these types of exercises “disc herniators” and inform our clients that they should only continue to do these if they wish to help us finance our latest facility expansion (The Three Worst Abdominal Exercises for People with Back Pain).
Single Leg Bosu Stance
WHAT?? How does standing in place on one leg on an unstable surface burn fat? It doesn't that's how. It isn't a metabolic power movement that burns a ton of calories in the recovery phase.
Plus, most people don't possess the right neural sequencing to properly stabilize their hips to allow their foot to actually stay still on solid ground let alone on something that moves. There are so many muscular compensation patterns you can develop from this its ridiculous.
So, now that we know what WON'T work for fat loss, here is the actual science of weight loss..... In the next article!
