My buddy and colleague, Mike Geary, author of The Truth About 6-Pack Abs, wrote this article and said I could share it with you.

The answer to the age-old question of “What is the best ab workout for losing stomach fat?” is…

None! Ab workouts alone don’t create enough of a metabolic response in your body to create fat loss.

As a trainer, nutrition specialist, and fitness professional, I often get asked what the best types of exercises and workouts are for losing stubborn stomach fat in order to bring out visible six pack abs. The problem is that most people with excess stomach fat looking to try to uncover their abs are searching for some “miracle abdominal workout” that is going to slash the fat off their abs in no time.

The thing is… they are going about the problem entirely the wrong way! The truth is that you don’t lose stomach fat by doing ab workouts.

The problem is that focusing most of your time and effort on abdominal exercises and abs workouts to try to flatten your stomach and bring out 6-pack abs is simply wasting your time from doing the correct workout programs that will acutally reduce your body fat for good.

If I were to choose an answer as to what the best exercises are for losing belly fat, my answer would include full body exercises such as the following:

various forms of squats, lunges, deadlifts, clean & presses, snatches, swings, presses and pulls, mountain climbers, sprinting, etc.

These types of full body exercises would encompass a much higher percentage of the workouts I would design instead of abs exercises directly targeting the midsection. The way you combine those full body exercises into a strategic workout that maximizes your metabolism is also very important.

Don’t get me wrong… I do recommend a certain amount of exercises that directly target the abs and core, but these are only a small fraction of the programs I design for my clients as your time is better spent focusing on the full body exercises that stimulate the greatest hormonal and metabolic changes within the body. In addition, a side-effect of working out using mostly full body multi-joint combo exercises are that you indirectly work your entire midsection even though you are not specifically targeting the abs.

Keep in mind that the most important factor for losing belly fat to see your abs is actually in the nutrition arena. No matter how hard you workout, if your diet is full of junk, then your abdominals will be covered with ugly fat. Nutrition is without a doubt the “king of getting a six pack”.

So let’s clear this up for good…

Stop wasting so much of your time focusing on situps, crunches, leg raises, and all those silly worthless “ab contraptions” in your efforts to try to develop 6-pack abs. Instead focus on high intensity full body lifts using combination multi-joint exercises all strategically combined into highly effective fat loss workouts. Couple that with a healthy diet full of natural unprocessed whole foods as close to their natural state as possible, and those elusive six-pack abdominals will yours in no time!

Check out below for more of my key strategies for getting flat sexy 6-pack abs for life.

Learn more about Mike’s secret strategies for losing stubborn stomach fat at the internet’s authority for Getting Flat Six Pack Abs

My fitness colleague Scott Tousignant and his wife Angie put together a great video demonstrating some of the most effective exercises to create amazing abs. Trust me, if you want great abs, sit-ups are not the answer. What you need to do is work the transverse abdominis muscle along with the internal and external abdominal oblique muscles. These muscles act like a girdle and tighten up your midsection. To work these muscles you need to do twisting and core stability movements.

Here’s the great video demonstrating Scott & Angie’s top 10 abdominal exercises…

Remember that in order to achieve 6 pack abs you will need a solid nutrition program combined with resistance, interval, and cardio training. Not to mention a powerful ‘Unstoppable’ Mindset to drive you to fat loss success.

Scott and Angie do less than 10 minutes of abs training each week. There’s no need for hundreds or thousands of reps. Increase the resistance and only do 10 reps for each exercise. Your abs will get worked with other exercises such as squats and anything else that requires stability such as renegade rows.

Scott Tousignant, BHK, CFC is the creator of Unstoppable Fat Loss, “What separates the fat loss success stories from the people who continue to struggle to achieve their dream body”

One of the best ab exercises for delveloping a flat stomach and 6-pack abs is sprinting. Just think of the way an athlete looks and trains. If you ask any athlete what they do to work their stomach and it is doubtful that they will tell you crunches. On the other hand, sprinting is a requirement in just about every athlete’s training.

Here are a couple of reasons of why sprints work so well for developing the abs and why they may be the king of all abs exercises. There is no exercise that generates more force in the abdominal musculature than sprinting – and total degree of muscle activation and length of time the muscle is under tension plays a big role in muscular development.

If you think about a sprinter running down a track at full speed, their arms and legs pumping, it is the enormous amount of force and pressure generated by the contraction of the abs that allows the body to stay upright and stabilize. Even one 10 second run can induce a tremendous amount of muscular stimulus on the abs.

Now, for an abs exercise to be considered the best, it also needs to accelerate fat loss. Almost all traditional abs exercises, like crunches, are poor fat burners. You can do them all day long and you still won’t be burning fat. Sprinting gets your body in an anaerobic state which causes a metabolic ripple, spiking your fat burning for hours and even days after the workout.

So not only are sprints on of the most effective exercises for developing strong and muscular abs, they teach your body to be an effective fat burner.

Check out Amazing Abs Formula for more information on how to develop a flat stomach and 6-pack abs.