Doing Crunches Without Cardio: Can I Get Ripped Without It?

Having a rock hard set of abdominals is the fervent desire of many people. When most people think of what is necessary to get six pack abs, inevitably repetition after repetition of abdominal crunches is what comes to mind. However, doing crunches without cardio might strengthen your abdominals, but you will not likely be seeing a six pack in the mirror any time soon.

The reason why doing crunches without cardio is a bad idea is that a strong set of abdominals is not enough to get a six pack to show. You can do extreme crunch workouts for months on end and never notice the results in the mirror if there is a mountain of fat between the abs and your skin. In fact, it does not take much fat to thoroughly cover the abdominals. A man might need to get his body fat down towards 10-12% body fat before even noticing his abs.

As a result, it is much more important to reduce your body fat percentage than it is to do abdominal exercises if you want wash board abs. While it is possible to lose fat without doing a lot of high intensity exercise, it is not that easy given that you can only safely cut back your food intake so much in a day. A restrictive diet carried on for a long time minus the exercise component can also sabotage your metabolism, making it even harder to lose the last few percentage points of body fat.

High intensity cardiovascular exercise, when implemented on top of a normal diet, can seriously aid you in getting that low body fat percentage you need to get your abs to show. In fact, you will want to spend much more time doing cardio than working on your abs if you want to get a solid mid section. Ideally you will want to do cardio for at least three to four times per week. Generally speaking interval type cardiovascular routines generally work better than the traditional endurance based cardio routines because there is some evidence that the latter might hinder the growth of lean body mass.

Doing crunches without cardio is generally not a really good idea if the end goal is a six pack midsection that you will want everyone to admire on the beach. Fat loss is just as important as ab development, and often it takes a healthy dose of cardio to get the low body fat percentages necessary so abs show clearly.

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