Please Stop Doing This…

It was Saturday morning and I surprisingly woke up at 7am to do one of my 30/15 fat loss cardio workouts at my local gym.

I wasn’t there for more than 7 minutes before a 50-ish year old lady came in, grabbed a stability ball and started doing crazy bouncing sit-ups on the ball…

Seriously, I’ve never witnessed someone doing ball crunces/situps/bouncing like this ever before.

And at the worst time of the day when the disks in your low back are at the greatest risk of herniation from such a movement.

If you want a lean stomach then this is possibly be one of the worst and least effective ways of getting it…

Trust me: In my quest to get a lean body for myself and my Markham Boot Camp girls I’ve done A LOT of research on the topic:

“A recent study published in the Journal of Strength and
Conditioning Research found that simply performing sit-ups,
crunches, and other ab exercises won’t do much (correction:
anything) to reduce belly fat.”

That’s the truth.

In addition, Dr. Stuart McGill has proven that the sit-up and crunch motion are harmful to your low back.

A recent Men’s Health article reported,

“One group of study subjects performed ab exercises 5 days a week while the control group did nothing. At the end of 6 weeks, there was no significant change in stomach fat in either group.”

In short: Ab exercises didn’t flatten people’s stomachs.

According to Men’s Health,

“It’ll take you 250,000 crunches to burn a pound of fat.”

So what should you do?

Not crunches.

Not sit-ups.

Instead, stick to total body metabolic resistance training workouts, interval training and total body ab exercises…just like I just did at Saturday at 7am in the gym.

Here’s one of the upcoming workouts I’ll be putting my Markham boot Camp girls through that you can do at the gym or at home:

30/15 Lean Body Circuit – 30 seconds of work with 15 minutes of rest – 8 rounds per station

1. Stability ball leg curl + stability ball chest press

2. Dumbbell Squat curl to press + Dumbbell reverse lunges

3. Dumbbell Renegade Rows + Burpees

4. TRX one arm rows (core straight) + TRX Mountain climbers

This is just a little sampling of how we are able to get our Markham Boot Camp women into their best shape.

Alright it’s time for me to hit the gym for some lower body work. Stay focused on your goals and leave a comment below if you have any questions.

Committed to your goals,

Dan

3 Comments

• 7 Reasons Why Intermittent Fasting Completely Destroys the Living Crap Out of Other Diets and Makes Your Life More Awesome | Leader's Fitnesss says:

  October 28, 2012 at 7:12 pm

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• Fitness Wayne | Paleo Diet, Exercise and Strength Training says:

  December 3, 2012 at 4:48 am

  You are right, the myth that ab workouts are the best way to target belly fat is one of the nastiest myths in the fitness industry. There isn’t much of a reason to starting working your ab muscles until your body fat % is below 12% for guys.

  Reply
• don't know how you can contact me says:

  January 29, 2013 at 3:35 pm

  My body fat is below 12% now what ? How do I work on abs?

  Reply