As a trainer, I love to be the bearer of common sense.  This world of exercise and dieting is nearly bereft of clear thinking, meaning what people want to see in the mirror clouds the way they’re thinking about what they’re doing.  For people staring at their stomachs in the mirror for too long, thinking “wow, no exercise will ever correct this problem” then I’d like you to inject a common sense question into your thought: How often do you use your stomach for it to look good?

Now, before you kill me with the number of crunches and sit-ups you do, I’d like to remind you first that sit-ups and crunches in America are about as effective as birth control-it’s there, no one seems to be motivated to do them right, doing them wrong hurts the situation more, and most don’t practice them enough or at all.  If our lives depended on crunches and safer sex, then the we’d be a country overpopulated with either beer-bellied, or pregnant people.  Wait, we already are.

So obviously, most of our methods of building the abdominal muscles are ineffective.  My suggestion-USE your stomach as you work out.  Your squats, lunges, basically all basic exercises should be done in a position that forces your body to rely on stomach strength.  This is the first way to strengthen your belly enough to do ENOUGH sit-ups and crunches to make them effective.  Generally, people do all of the things in their power during exercise to avoid using their stomachs.  Doing the opposite means results like you’ve never had the sense to see.