Crunches

  This exercise strongly activates your abdominal muscles, which, when fully developed, really set off a well-muscled physique. How your abs appear, or even if they appear at all, is largely due to your dietary habits (an area we will concernourselves with later). This means that no stomach exercise—repeat: no stomach exercise— will “melt” or “burn” or otherwise metamorphose bodyfat from your physique. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that if you perform sit-up after sit-up, you will in some way be ridding your abdomen of surplus adipose; that’s just not the way our species’ physiology functions. Train hard to develop your stomach muscles, and then diet to reduce your subcutaneous bodyfat stores, and your abdominal muscles will stand out in bold relief.

  To perform crunches effectively, lie faceup on the fl oor—on a mat—with your hands behind your head. Try to keep your chin on your chest throughout the movement. Lift your feet up on top of a bench, with your legs slightly apart. From this starting position, slowly curl your trunk upward toward a sitting position. You’ll find that you can accomplish a third of the required sit-up in this fashion, which is fine, because that is all the range of motion that your abdominals require to be stimulated into maximum growth. Once you have ascended to a fully contracted position, hold the position for a two-count, and then lower yourself slowly back to the starting position. Repeat for the required number of repetitions.