True or false

Blynn2619

I shouldn't be doing crunches to lose belly fat because it will just make my stomach bigger.

NorthCascades

False. You shouldn't be doing crunches to lose belly fat because you can't decide where you'll lose fat from, your body just sort of pulls it from everywhere. Also, it's a calorie deficit (mostly eating less) and not a specific exercise that makes you lose fat.

Carlos_421

What is true is that you cannot spot reduce. Exercising the muscles in an area doesn't cause the body to burn fat specifically from that area.
When you have a calorie deficit your body pulls energy from fat cells but this is completely independent of which muscles are activated during exercises.

What is not true is that crunches would be likely to provide sufficient muscle fiber activation as to stimulate such growth as to increase the size of the stomach.