Sunday, January 18, 2009

Crunches - Not The Answer For Six Pack Abs

The truth about crunches! We all seek answers to achieving
ripped abs. The truth about crunches is that they are good
for our abdominal muscles, but they will not give you the
ripped abs that you want. To get ripped abs, you need to
work on fat burning exercises that will burn overall fat,
watching what we eat and eliminating stress from our lives.

Doing crunches may be stopping you from getting six pack abs
because it doesn't focus on what needs to be trained.
Crunches strengthen, stabilize and develop the abdominal
area. But to get six pack abs, we need to focus on overall
fat burning.

Overall fat burning exercises are activities that allow us
to train our whole body to increase our metabolism. By
increasing our metabolism, we are better able to burn fat
and utilize the excess belly fat, which results in more
visibility of the abdominal muscles.

Resistance training has been shown to increase metabolic
activity and help the body to consume more body fat.
Increasing lean body mass through resistance training allows
us to utilize more fuel for our muscles.

Watching what we eat is important as well. By eating quality
foods, which are rich in protein, fat, carbohydrates,
vitamins and minerals, we fuel our body to function better.
Instead of eating 3 big meals per day, we can increase our
meals to 5-6 and decrease the meal portions. This will allow
us to maintain our energy and blood sugar levels throughout
the day.

Stress affects our bodies in a way that makes our bodies
react in an emergency mode. When our bodies are in a
stressful situation, Cortisol is released and causes fat to
be stored in the abdominal area.

There are several ways to decrease the amount of stress in
our lives. Activities like deep breathing, tai chi, and
yoga, have ways of calming the body down and help to reduce
stress.

Crunches, in truth, are good for you but to achieve defined
ripped abs, we need to focus on other factors. Activities like
resistance training, watching what we eat and eliminating stress
from our lives, will help us achieve our ripped six-pack abs.

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