Everybody wants a flat abdomen so when working out, people usually focus on stomach exercises.
They usually try to eliminate the abdominal fat and to look better.
As they don't mind fat in other body parts than in the abdominal area, they think targeted exercises are the best.
Crunches are well known and very popular when speaking about stomach exercises.
The bad news is that this type of exercise is not so efficient in burning belly fat as many people believe.
If you just learn a few things about how losing fat really works, you will soon realize why crunches are ineffective.
It is not necessary that working out a certain body part will result in losing fat from that part.
Our body functions as a whole, so when we exercise we lose fat from our entire body.
No matter what area we target, fat loss is uniform in our body.
Consequently, crunches burn fat from all over and not just from your stomach.
What they do indeed is toning abdominal muscles, but this is useless as long as the fat is still there.
Crunches are not actually burning that much fat, because they are not intensive at all.
You don't have to be in a perfect shape in order to do several dozen per set.
By this you can tell they are not really intensive.
In order to lose belly fat, you should start working out intensely.
Forget crunches and focus on other types of exercise.
You can do whatever exercise you please, as we established the body part you are working is not important.
Try chest presses, lunges or squats.
If you want to stick to the targeted exercises in order to tone your stomach, do harder ones which are more effective than just crunches.
Replace crunches with leg lifts, plank, leg raises or inclined crunches.