Most people I meet want a hard, flat belly, and so they ask me for great ab workouts. 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.

Here’s the problem: people are looking for exercises and routines that target 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. Weight loss is caused by increasing your metabolism and enhancing your body’s fat-burning hormonal response to working out, and that’s best achieved by a full-body strategic workout.

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 no miracle – excess belly fat will be eliminated by a combination of this high intensity full body routine combined with a healthy, nutrient dense diet. Unlike a plan of crunches and leg raises, this program will produce real results.

A disappointing truth, though, is that a majority of the population that wants to get rid of excess belly fat stubbornly clings to the fallacy that ab-specific exercises are the best way to get it done. 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. Do yourself a favor and avoid that bad advice!

It probably seems strange that an abs expert like me would be recommending against ab exercises, but understand that what I’m recommending against is the reliance on ab-specific exercises as a prime cause of belly fat loss. Ab-specific exercises strengthen and tone the abdominal muscles, just as any exercise targeted to a particular muscle group will strengthen and tone that group. 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.

If you found this article helpful and you’d like to learn more about what exercises get rid of belly fat, check out the website Easy Weight Loss Pro.

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