We've all been guilty of it at one point or another: pounding away hundreds of crunches in hopes of getting a "six pack." The fact of the matter is that many people care about "getting abs" for their aesthetic value rather than focusing on training them for developing stability and core strength. It is called your "core" because that is where every movement initiates. Whether you're squatting, deadlifting or doing an overhead press, it all starts with a tight, strong core. The core muscles allow you to stabilize your hips and shoulders: that is their primary function. Treat these muscles as the gateway to total body strength. You want to see real "core strength?" Look at a gymnast or a pole dancer--they have complete and total control over their centers of gravity. Essentially, developing a strong core means manipulating your center of gravity efficiently and effectively.
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| Russian Olympic gymnast Alexei Nemov |
So why are crunches a waste of time? There are many reasons, but the main reason being that crunches are only really engaging the rectus abdominis muscles (the superficial muscles that can make up a "six pack"). This means that your intrinsic core muscles (like the transverse abdominis), your obliques, and your hip flexors are all left unactivated. To be more efficient and really develop core strength, you must utilize all of the rectus abdominis and activate the hip flexors. The hip flexors will help stabilize your pevis in exercises like the squat or the deadlift. As I mentioned earlier, the CrossFit methodology notes that "[they] train [their] athletes to think of every exercise as an ab exercise." While doing designated core exercises can be beneficial, you must remember to engage your abs in every exercise that you do.
If you're looking for specific "core" excercises, here are a few: v-ups, ab roll-outs, hollow holds, bird dogs, deadbugs, GHD sit-ups, toes-to-bar (or knees-to-elbows), and L-sits on rings or parallettes. For demonstrations of these exercises, refer to YouTube: there are a lot of great demos of each movement on there.
The most important thing to note, however, is that if you really want "6 pack abs," you must, and I repeat, must make sure you follow a healthy diet. Body fat percentage is what really accounts for visibility of muscles. You can't expect to counteract eating a whole pizza by doing 100 v-ups and running a mile; our bodies simply do not work that way.
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