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We all do crunches for our abs. However, crunches may be stopping you from getting six pack abs. Instead of doing thousands and thousands of ab crunches, we should focus on overall fat burning activities like resistance training, watching our diet and decreasing the stress in our lives.

Crunches are not necessarily bad for six pack abs. In fact, crunches are good exercises to strengthen, stabilize and develop our abdominal muscles. But to achieve six pack abs, we need to focus on overall fat burning activities.

Exercises that have a fat burning effect are overall exercises that help increase our metabolism, which allows body fat to be burned. The increased metabolism rids the body of excess fat in our abdominal region, when this occurs, the six-pack abs under the fat will become more visible.

Resistance training has been shown to increase metabolic activity and help the body to consume more body fat. Increasing lean body mass from resistance training allows us to utilize more fuel for our muscles.

Watching what we eat is important as well. By eating quality foods, which are rich in protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals, we fuel our body to function better. Instead of eating 3 big meals per day, we can increase our meals to 5-6 and decrease the meal portions. This will allow us to maintain our energy and blood sugar levels throughout the day.

Stress has a way of counteracting our efforts. With increased stress, Cortisol is released and causes the body to store more fat in the abdominal area. The fat is stored there to help prepare the body for an emergency situation.

There are activities that are effective in reducing our stress. Activities like yoga, tai chi and deep breathing have all been shown to decrease stress in people.

Crunches, in truth, are good for you but to achieve defined ripped abs, we need to understand we need to focus on other factors. Activities like resistance training, watching what we eat and eliminating stress from our lives, will help us achieve our ripped six-pack abs.