The Six Pack Myth

As I converse with a lot of you on a regular basis and you ask questions regarding exercise and nutrition, I realize that there are a lot of myths circulating about fitness. Tonight was our core class and as developing the core is crucial to overall health and fitness, the myth is that you will develop a six pack from the sit ups done during class. Is it true or false?

Six-Pack Myth

Doing hundreds of abdominal curls will give me a six-pack - true or false?

THIS IS FALSE

  • No matter how many sit ups you do in a day, you will not be seeing a six-pack in a hurry if you have a layer of fat covering it up.
  • When you exercise, fat is lost from throughout the body. The place that you first put on weight (usually the hips and thighs for women, the stomach for men) is the last place you will lose it from. It is not possible to focus on one body part and only work it in an attempt to reduce that fatty area.
  • Doing lots of abdominal exercises will help to strengthen and develop you abdominal muscles, and you may develop a good six pack. You will just have to also reduce your excess body fat to show off your well defined abdominal muscles to the world.

As well as doing lots of sit ups, you should focus on good overall exercise modes such as running and cycling, which will burn the maximum amount of calories and help to reduce all of your fat stores. Eventually you will be able to reduce the fat around your belly, and at the same time the fat will come off elsewhere too.

In the future I will tackle some other fitness myths that have been circulating and see if they are true or false.

Have a good night

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