Ever go to the gym and watch someone do 3 or 6 ab exercises for 20 minutes, yet never ever change their body? Hopefully that hasn’t happened to you. After all, there is a really simple, proven way to lose belly fat, get a flat stomach, and even to get ripped six pack abs.  I’ll tell you more about that in a moment.

But first, if you’ve been doing ab exercises like crunches and situps and still not getting the results you deserve, than don’t be disappointed any longer. There are a lot of reasons why you don’t want to do situps, bicycle crunches, or other traditional ab exercises.

Reason #1 – Situps and ab crunches are bad ab exercises for your back

It isn’t your fault if you’ve been doing ab exercises that are bad for your back, because so many mainstream articles and uninformed fitness experts have said that crunches are good.

But scientific research has found that both crunches and situps, and other exercises that cause your low back to flex and your spine to round can cause disk herniations, one of the most painful back problems of all.

You must avoid all ab exercises that cause you to flex your spine and round your back. In addition, you must avoid rounding your back when you pick weights off the floor – or even when you bend down to pick up a pencil.

Always keep your abs braced and back flat, and bend at your knees to get low to the ground. Bracing your abs simply means flexing them as if someone was about to punch you in the stomach. That’s how you want to be set to do your abs exercises too.

So stop doing those bad abs exercises and switch to safe and effective ab movements like planks, side planks, and stability ball planks.

Reason #2 – Situps and crunches are bad ab exercises for your neck

Recently a personal trainer stopped me at a fitness seminar and said, “My clients complain of neck pain when they do crunches and situps, so what should I do?”

I was shocked that a trainer at this advanced fitness seminar would still be using these ridiculous movements, so I said to him, “Whoa, you need to stop doing those exercises.

There are so many other and better total body ab movements.” With his beginner clients he needs to start with the ab plank movements, and a great mid-level intensity ab exercise is the stability ball jackknife.

But the truth is that most trainers spend far too much time having their clients do boring, dangerous, and ineffective ab exercises down on the floor. Be careful when making your ab workout choices.

Reason #3 – Most ab exercises get NO results

I’ve been training clients since the mid-1990′s and I’ve yet to see anyone who has ever gotten flat, six-pack abs from crunches. From the University gym where I started training my first fat loss clients and athletes, all the way to the gyms I’ve visited in Europe, Australia, Eastern Europe, and Central America, too many people are wasting their time with crunches. It’s really disappointing. Time to stop the insanity.

Most abs exercises are useless. You’d be much better off doing interval training to burn belly fat.  That’s why the Turbulence Training for Abs workouts use both interval training and metabolic resistance training workouts to help you burn fat and work your abs at the same time. You don’t need traditional ab exercises if you want to get a flat stomach.

Reason #4 – Doing old-school abs exercise training is gross and boring

When you do situps, crunches, and other boring abs exercises lying down on the floor, it is almost always gross and dirty. If you are using a mat, it will be covered in germs.  It’s even worse if you are doing crunches on a hotel room carpet that hasn’t been properly cleaned in ages. You don’t even want to know what dirt on that floor.

So switch it up and move to total body ab exercises that don’t require you to lie on your back on a dirty floor or mat, and you should also switch to stability ball ab exercises. It’s much easier to clean a ball than to clean a carpet.

Reason #5 – Abs exercises won’t burn belly fat

It takes over 22,000 crunches to burn 3500 calories (one pound) of fat. What a scary statistic when it comes to losing belly fat and getting flat sexy abs. Clearly crunches are not a good use of your time.

Here’s what you need to do instead. Change over to the total body ab exercises I’ve mentioned and described in this article, and get the free Turbulence Training for Abs workout report that gives you 3 TT ab circuits and video demonstrations of the best abs exercises.