No Crunches, No Cardio

You have to let them go.

No Crunches.

No Cardio.

Do you spend 20 minutes at the end of your workout doing endless crunches hoping when you stand up you will have flat abs?

Do you walk on the treadmill at the gym at 3.5 mph gabbing the entire time with your girlfriend on the next treadmill over for 45 minutes?

Are you happy with your current physique? No?

Perhaps you are spending too much time doing the wrong things, such as crunches and long, slow cardio, and not enough time on the right things.

As some of you may know, a few years back I had trained for and completed a 15K road race. I was running with a friend and we had found great satisfaction in meeting the challenge of running new and longer races. We had completed a number of local 5K events but set our sites higher for a bigger and more exciting challenge.

During the running years, I never lost 1 pound. To be truthful, I didn’t have a whole lot of extra weight to lose to begin with, but one would think after training for months for a race that took us 1 hour and 45 minutes to complete, we would have burned some extra fat along the way.

In fact, I remember actually gaining a few pounds during this time. That volume of training made me hungry and I had to eat more! Not only that, but I would often feel entitled to eat more of the foods I love but shouldn’t be eating. “I ran 5 miles today, why can’t I get eat a gigantic bowl of ice cream?”.

What I have found fat loss and weight maintenance success with is circuit training and cardio intervals.

Research shows that high intensity cardio intervals promotes a greater amount of fat loss than long, slow cardio.

If you like to run, then run. Do what makes you happy. But if you consistently go out for a jog even though you hate it and you still haven’t dropped any fat then you need to ramp up the intensity and do intervals.

As for crunches, recent studies report that not only are crunches ineffective for revealing flat abs or significantly increasing core strength but the spinal flexion that occurs during the movement can actually do more damage to your back than good for your abs.

Total body, core stabilization exercises are best for increasing strength in your abs.

However, you still need to get rid of the pooch to be able to see a flat belly so get on those high intensity cardio intervals.

So, no crunches, no cardio. That is our new motto around here. Start doing more of the right things and less of the time wasters to meet your fat loss goals.

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