Saturday, January 3, 2009

Crunches - The Truth

By Jose Loni

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.

Crunches do not target what needs to be trained. Crunches are good for stabilizing, strengthening and developing the muscles of the abdomen. But to achieve defined ripped abs, overall fat-burning activities must be done.

Fat burning exercises consist of overall exercises that increase our metabolism to further burn body fat. When we increase our metabolism, our bodies utilize the excess body fat in our stomach area, which allows the underlying abdominal muscles to become more visible.

Resistance training has been shown to increase metabolic activity and help the body to consume more body fat. Increasing lean body mass from 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 has a way of counteracting our efforts. With increased stress, Cortisol is released and causes the body to store more fat in the abdominal area. The fat is stored there to help prepare the body for an emergency situation.

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.

Six pack abs are not a direct result of doing crunches. In fact, it may be stopping you from getting six pack abs. We should focus on overall fat burning activities like resistance training, watching our diet, and reducing the stress in our lives. Understanding these facts and being disciplined to change can achieve your goal of getting six pack abs. - 15255

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