If you go into any gym anywhere in the world, the body part which most people there will be working on is the stomach. People crave flat abs. They hate having excess belly fat. Among the many stomach exercises which people do, crunches is probably the most popular, but is it really effective?
Do crunches really burn belly fat? I'm afraid that the answer is no and the fact that people still believe that they do indicates an ignorance as to how the body works.
Burner Fat
You see, while it seems logical that when we workout a specific body part that we will lose fat from that body part, the reality is different. In reality, we lose weight from all over our body as a single unit and not just from the body part which we're working. What this means is that when you do crunches you're not burning belly fat specifically but fat from all over your body.
Crunches do help to tone your abs because they strengthen the muscles. However, until you lose the excess belly fat, you will never see those muscles. They will be covered by a layer of fat.
The truth is that crunches aren't really that good a fat burning exercise. They're not really that intensive. Even a moderately fit person can do several dozen crunches in a single set. This indicates that this isn't such a high intensity workout.
If you want to lose belly fat, you should do more rigorous, fat burning workouts. Since it doesn't matter which body part you workout, intensive exercises like squats, lunges, chest presses, should thrusts, and others are better to burn body fat with.
If you do want to really tone the abs, doing harder stomach exercises like hanging leg raises, the plank, incline crunches, and leg lifts, are better and more effective than regular crunches.