Want to get a six pack? As it turns out, researchers have discovered the one exercise that’s best for getting a lean, chiseled core–and it isn’t gimmicky machines such as the Ab Wheel or Ab Rocket.
Studying a group of men and women who worked out their abs, researchers from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse found that the best exercise for the abs didn’t involve any machines at all–instead, the perfect exercise of choice was the crunch.
“We spent a considerable amount of money on abdominal exercise equipment to basically show that you can effectively train the abs at home for free,” says Edward Stenger, M.S., one of the study’s lead researchers. “Obviously, laying on the ground doing the traditional crunch is not appropriate for everybody, especially people with low-back pain, but for the average person who wants to work his or her abdominal muscles to get stronger, have less back pain, and get better health benefits, all you need to do is get a comfortable spot on the floor, lay down and do some crunches.”
Stenger, along with colleague John P. Porcari, Ph.D. and other University of Wisconsin-La Crosse scientists, first came across this discovery after recruiting 16 people to participate in a study testing the efficacy of certain ab machines. The study, which included both men and women, had them test out a variety of ab equipment during one practice session to see how much of the abdominal area it activated. The machines included were the Ab Roller, the Ab Circle Pro, the Ab Lounge, the Perfect Sit-Up, and the Ab Coaster, along with traditional ab exercises, such as the captain’s chair crunch, the front plank, and the standard crunch.
As they soon found out, exercise machines such as the Ab Lounge and Perfect Sit-Up didn’t perform as well overall–but crunches did.
“When you look across the different exercises, none were greater than the traditional crunch,” says Porcari. “This is interesting because other studies (including other studies we’ve done), showed a difference. I think a part of it is, when we looked at the EMG for the traditional crunch, we had people do the traditional crunch very deliberately and correctly, and I think we had fairly high activation from the abs because of that.”
So What Should You Do?
Of course, as Porcari notes, no exercise is truly the best if you don’t practice proper form–something which researchers had the participants do in this study. This may explain why in previous studies researchers found that crunches didn’t seem to perform better than other exercises.
Regardless of what you do, however, researchers say it’s probably a waste of money to invest in an ab machine, machine. Instead, get your crunch on.
Readers: Have you tried any of these machines or exercises before? Which one is your favorite?
Sources:
Study: Crunches Best Overall Exercise For Working Entire Abdominal Area – ACEFitness.org
Ab Machines Bad for Working Out Abs; Surprisingly, Crunches are Best – Refinery29.com
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