Spot Training: The Myth

No, training your abs harder will not give you more visible abs, in fact squats are more beneficial.  It may be counter-intuitive to some, but after thinking it over it will become a bit more obvious.

What is Spot Training?

Spot Training is training or excising only one muscle group or area of the body.

Why Spot Training?

Often people believe if they want a more defined area of their body that they need to increase the reps for that particular muscle group. Although this will tone and condition the muscle it will not remove fat around the muscle group that is keeping it from being visible.

How Body Fat Reduction Works

When exercising a muscle group the energy comes from calories, some of those calories come from "stored calories"(fat),  your body grabs calories from all of its fat stores not just the fat stores available in the area being exercised. So when doing crunches your body is not using only the fat stores in your abdomen but rather all of the fat stores available in your body. If you go for a jog with your dog, squat in the gym, or rep crunches in your living room, fat will still be all be burned the same.

Why Squats Over Crunches?
Since your body grabs its energy from fat stores all over the body it is best to uses muscles that require a lot of energy.  Just look at the size of your hamstring and quadriceps compared to your biceps and triceps.  Your legs can lift a lot of weight, and moving a lot of weight requires a lot of energy (calories)

The Best Bet
Stay away from sport training.  It isn't good for your body to have muscle imbalances.  Eating healthy will help prevent having excess calories that are stored as fat.  Also, controlling your metabolism which can be read about here ( Metabalism: Know It  Control It ), and of course a daily does of physical activity.

Thanks for reading, any advice on things you would want to read about is always appreciated.  Otherwise have a great day and spread the health