People want a flat stomach, and so they ask me the best ab workout to achieve it. See, I’m a fitness professional, and in the course of my work I encounter a great many misconceptions about fitness. The idea that ab-specific workouts will cause the loss of belly fat, in my estimation, has got to be one of the most widespread. And even though most people have some amount of excess belly fat, the truth about how to lose it continues to stymie most of them.

It’s a simple problem, actually: people want workout routines and exercises that will dissolve their belly fat. They seem to think that there’s some secret set of exercises out that that not only will condition the abs into a perfect six-pack, they’ll also burn off the belly fat that’s hiding those muscles - and all of this pretty much overnight!

Here’s an inconvenient truth for you, though: there’s no exercise for the abs that will specifically burn off belly fat. All they do is strengthen and tone the abdominal muscles living under the belly fat. Fat loss can’t be targeted - the body turns to stored fat for energy when the metabolism is increased and when a particular hormonal response is triggered. These conditions are most efficiently set in motion by a well-planned full body workout. There’s no way, though, to dictate which fat cells are burned first.

The most effective metabolic rate and hormonal response aren’t going to be produced by a simple cardiovascular routine, though. Your needs will much more efficiently be met by a rounded program that targets the entire body. High intensity resistance training is a critical component of such a program, as are multi-joint exercises.

It’s this full-body approach, combined with a nutrient-rich healthy diet, that will burn the excess belly fat and reveal the well-conditioned abs. The results you’re looking for will be accomplished with this program, and it will produce them far more efficiently than a desperation-induced program of crunches and leg raises.

What’s astounding, though, is that the majority of the population still thinks that to melt away belly fat, you’ve got to do hundreds of reps of ab-specific exercises. You can imagine how frustrating it is for me to see this bad advice routinely given on the on-line fitness forums and fitness-oriented television programs. Part of the purpose of this article is to help people recognize and avoid such bad advice!

Now don’t misunderstand - I’m not recommending against ab exercises, I’m recommending against relying on them for belly fat loss. I actually believe that it’s beneficial for your workout routine to include some ab exercises. The strength and tone of the abdominal muscles themselves is enhanced by a carefully-crafted routine of ab-specific exercises. But it’s incontrovertible - no exercise targeting a specific muscle group will also cause the loss of fat in that area. Ab exercises won’t cause the loss of belly fat.

These are the most important factors: you’ve got to have a routine of full body resistance training, and you’ve got to have a healthy, clean, balanced diet. And keep this in mind - the abs get a great deal of work, even if it’s indirect, from many full-body routines because of the stabilization required.

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