I am always being asked what the best abs movement is to get a flat stomach. One of the biggest myths that I have to deal with daily is the myth that abdominal training burns abdominal fat. Everyone has different amounts of fat on their abdominal, and for most of those people a way to successfully get rid of that abdominal fat is yet to be found.

Their mistake is often in looking for the wrong training methods and movements in order to lose their hard to move abdominal fat. For most they continue to search for the mythical holy grail of abs training, the right combination of movements using the right equipment to finally move that stubborn abdominal fat almost instantly.

I wish they did but abs specific training will not burn fat from your abdominal. All they do is strengthen and develop the ab muscles underneath the abdominal fat. The only real way to burn fat is to create a higher metabolic rate and to increase the fat burning hormone response, this can be done with a strategic whole body training program not by training relatively small muscles with small movements.

The traditional long slow cardio workouts don't really create the effect you need from your hormones and metabolism either. Creating a complete program focusing on using multi joint and whole body resistance training movements and using a high intensity in your workouts is key to getting more fat loss from your program.

This method of training using high intensity whole body exercises and making sure to eat a healthy diet, is a fool proof way to getting rid of the fat covering up your abs. This is far more effective than hoping that doing heaps of abdominal crunches will burn up the fat on your abs, research and experience proves this simply will never work.

It still amazes me how most people still believe that you have to do these useless abs movements to lose fat from your abdominal, and do hundreds of repetitions every day of the week. It is crazy how many people still advance this myth on the fitness forums every hour of the day. Please please please don't waste your time and effort following advice like this.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate abs movements. The right movements done usefully in your program can be great for toning and strengthening your abdominal. Doing these abs movements to help strengthen and tone your muscles is a good strategy and they provide additional benefits like helping your back and posture when they are done correctly (although they can also make your back hurt if done incorrectly), but if you are looking to burn fat from your abs the fact is doing these movements as your strategy to lose fat is not the right idea and will leave you disappointed.

Using the right combination of whole body resistance training and making sure your diet is healthy are the best things you can do to see your six pack abs. You will also find that doing full body movements really do work the abs, as they are very important in their role as stabilisers of your body, some would say even more important than their ability to crunch.