I hear a lot of adults, but mostly young adults, saying they want to be in better shape. They hear, “Get a six pack in just 4 weeks by just doing 100 crunches a day.” But most of them don’t realize that having noticeable abdominal muscles doesn’t mean that you have a strong core.
The main purposes of abdominal muscles are to
- Protect your internal organs &
- Stabilize your ribcage
The transverses abdominis muscle is very under looked in today’s fitness techniques. It acts as a belt to help your organs stay in the right place. When you pull your belly in, you activate those muscles helping to stabilize your pelvis. Thus, keeping your hips in the right position. Most abdominal exercise routines tell you to keep your core tight while doing an exercise, but mo
st people tighten their rectus abdominus and this makes it harder to breathe and puts your body in a kyphosis position which can be harmful for your spine.
In short, an alternative to getting a stronger core is to reduce your body fat. There are many ways to measure this using skin calipers, a bathroom scale, or even a professional scanner, but those are more expensive. To lower your body fat percentage, you have to clean your diet and lose weight. The average body fat percentage for a woman is between 25 and 31 percent while males are between 18 and 24 percent. Typically, athletes in both genders have a lower amount of body fat. The ideal body weight percentage to get to make your abs show is anything below 10-12%.
The unfortunate truth: Depending on your genetics, you may never have visible abs.
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