that whole "flatter stomach" thing

radia

Was just thinking about this. When people are promoting abs exercises, it's always 'for a flatter stomach'. Now, given that you can't spot reduce fat from your stomach and there are more calorie-intensive ways of exercising than abs exercises for losing fat in general, that undermines the rationale for abs exercises.
But for any given level of belly fat, could having stronger abs muscles mean the overall appearance is flatter (maybe intestines held back in abdominal cavity behind muscles??) with less bulging out? Or is this just rubbish?
I know if I tense my stomach muscles in a certain way (not sucking in tummy, just tensing ab muscles) it flattens things out a bit, but that's irrelevant from a day to day perspective since one wouldn't be walking round with the muscles permanently tensed. So in their relaxed state, could stronger abs muscles still cause that area to be flatter?

Hanley

Maybe.... but the quickest way to get an apparently flatter stomach without doing any ab exercises is just to sort out and lordosis that you have going on.

Most people have tight hips and weak/dormant glutes which leads to a bigger looking gut ala the picture below. Sort that you and all of a sudden you can look slimmer without havin lost any weight.

TPR86

Hanley wrote: »

Maybe.... but the quickest way to get an apparently flatter stomach without doing any ab exercises is just to sort out and lordosis that you have going on.

Most people have tight hips and weak/dormant glutes which leads to a bigger looking gut ala the picture below. Sort that you and all of a sudden you can look slimmer without havin lost any weight.

Interesting ..

radia

That is interesting. And browsing suggests that strengthening the abs would be part of a lordosis correction programme.

Thanks.