Crunches can be a very effective tool in developing abdominal muscle tissue. The rectus abdominus is your “six pack” muscle, which is the outer most abdominal muscle group that is visible when you have a very low body fat percentage. The better developed your abs are, the more prominent your six pack will be.
The same is true for people wishing to obtain a flat stomach, rather than a well defined six pack. Apart from lower your body fat, if you develop the rectus abdominus, you will have a far more toned midsection.
Abdominal work targeting your six pack muscle can come in a range of forms. You can perform floor crunches, ball crunches, cable crunches, cable ball crunches, decline crunches and a variety of other exercises. It’s important to note two major things:
- Crunching work is effective for rectus abdominus development. Sit-ups are not. The difference lies in your motion – with crunches you go from a straight back to a curved back. With sit-ups, you keep a straight back and pivot from the hips.
- Crunch work is effective for muscle development, not fat loss. You cannot spot reduce fat from the midsection specifically. For fat loss, you should consider a combination of weight training, cardio training and smart nutrition (I have a link to an article of interest at the end of this post).
So, the question remains:
How to Get a Six Pack or a Flat Stomach with Crunches?
You may be surprised to find out the answer:
Keep it short and intense.
In fact, performing too many sets can induce an endurance response. This is great if you are trying to perform hundreds of crunches for a particular reason (fitness test, competition, personal goal etc.). But if you are trying to develop the abs, this is going to be a big waste of time.
As a very general rule of thumb, 3-4 high intensity sets can be more than enough to stimulate a strength and hypertrophy (or muscle development) response. Aim to keep the repetitions low, below 12, so you are overloading the abdominals with a fair degree of load.
If you are inexperienced, then this would probably not be the best approach. You do need to have a good foundational abdominal and core strength before you can begin lifting heavy loads without an unncecessarily increased risk of injury to your spine. If this is the case, aim for around 15-20 reps under the guidance of a professional personal trainer.
The key is this – the rectus abdominus is just like other muscle groups – it is a functional muscle responsible for movement and is capable of significant growth. Whilst the muscle fibre composition of the rectus abdominus may vary from other muscles, the abs grow in the same manner as all other functional muscle groups. For example, many people will perform a few heavy sets on chest because this has been shown to be quite effective for hypertrophy. However it baffles me why those same people perform 10 sets of crunches with a total rep count of 50 or more!
I hope this helps in your quest for a six pack. Keep it simple and stick to scientifically proven methodologies, rather than following what everyone else does.
Because obtaining a six pack or a flat stomach is often the result of weight loss (as fat tissue will cover the outer layer of your rectus abdominus), I strongly recommend that you have a read of my article, “How to Lose Weight“. This article will explain the basic principles behind weight loss, which will help you in significantly reducing your waistline.
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