I think saying "will training my abs make me lose fat" is more appropriate but if I said it that way someone is bound to ask me about the "core" because it's such a buzzword.
THE ANSWER IS NO.
You will not lose more fat from doing a bunch of ab exercises. Lowering body fat predominantly happens from improving your hormonal status with a clean diet and good sleep quality. Don’t believe me? Here’s what one of my favorite doctors on Instagram said (if you’re on IG you should follow this guy).
When it comes to training, exercises that require a lot of muscle mass are a far better use of your time than doing a bunch of ab exercises such as crunches or planks. But this blog post isn’t going to be about good nutrition, it’s going to be about how we train the core at ascend perform and some of the exercises we like to use.
We need to agree on the definition of the core first. Most people think the core is just the abs. Coaches that I respect would call the muscles of the trunk the core. I mostly think of the erector spinae (back muscles that run up along the sides of the spine), the abs, and the muscles involved in rotation.
Although you can’t lower your body fat by just doing core exercises doesn’t mean you shouldn’t train them. Many people need more strength in these muscles to help prevent injuries or fix existing pain by having a balanced body, or want them more developed just for aesthetic reasons. A well-designed training program is going to be very specific to the individual and what they need so I can’t get too specific. Usually, there are no more than one or at best two exercises for the core within a workout.
Here are a few exercises we like to use if the person is ready for them by showing proficiency is the movement.
ABDONIMAL BRACING
Ab Wheel
Body Saw
Med Ball Pike Ups
Sprinter Sit-Ups
LOWER ABS
Hanging Leg Raise
Incline Garhammer Raise
Monkey Feet Hip Flexor
ROTATION / ANTI-ROTATION
Core Rotational Sling (pictured in the image)
Pallof Press
Half Kneeling High to Low Cable Chop
To summarize, people often don’t realize they are getting core work when doing exercises like squats, dead lifts, and pull-ups properly. As I said earlier, exercises that train multiple muscles and more muscle mass are far superior for lowering body fat from training than small muscles. I always tell people to consider big muscles as a furnace and small muscles as a microwave. A furnace will produce a lot more heat.
If you want to get results far faster than you could get on your own, contact to schedule a free training session. We can also discuss your goals and how we will get you to reach them.
