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Let’s face it, everyone wants nice abs. But how do we get them? That’s the billion dollar question. Many trainers claim they have developed workouts that directly target belly fat, while others claim “abs are made in the kitchen” and only diet matters. Who’s right? There was a study performed in 2011 to determine whether or not it’s possible to directly target belly fat with abdominal exercises. [1]
Study Setup
Twenty-four healthy, but inactive participants were divided into two groups. Participants were randomly assigned to an abdominal exercise group or a control group (a group that didn’t do any exercise). The abdominal exercise group trained their abs five days per week for six weeks and made no changes to their diets.
The ab workout consisted of a five minute treadmill warm-up at about 2.5 mph and 7 abdominal exercises, at 2 sets of 10 reps each. The exercises were:
Bent-Knee Sit-Up
Lateral Trunk Flexion
Leg Lifts
Oblique Crunch
Stability Ball Crunch
Stability Ball Twist
Abdominal Crunch
Results
On average, the participants in the ab exercise group decreased their total body fat percentage from 35.9 to 34.8, which is a 3.06% decrease. They decreased their abdominal fat percentage from 43.5 to 42.3, which is a 2.76% decrease.
Discussion
The ab exercise group did see a reduction in belly fat. The catch here is that the reduction in total body fat was greater than the reduction in belly fat. In other words, there was no spot reduction in belly fat as a result of targeted ab exercises.
There was no spot reduction in belly fat as a result of targeted ab exercises.
The exercise program caused them to burn more Calories and as a result, they lost overall body fat, including fat in the stomach region. In other words, the only way to reveal your abs is to burn more Calories than you consume. In that sense, abs really are made in the kitchen; however, we still need to train our abs so that they will show through the skin when we get lean.
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