Why stay with old routines that don’t eliminate fat from your abs and barely even tone them up, because they’re so unendingly specific? Instead, go with some of the new routines, and ignore all that old junk.

Here are 5 reasons those classic routines no longer work.

#5: When it Comes to Ab Workouts, Crunches Are Out of Date.

Crunches are actually pretty useless, it turns out — they’re way too specific, and they don’t use your time doing workouts nearly as well as many other exercises do.

Plus, a culture of repetition built up around them that wasn’t very safe or worthwhile, meaning an entire generation of exercisers wasted a lot of time in the gym.

#4: Most Pieces of Equipment Don’t Work Well.

Don’t bother with using some kind of expensive piece of exercise equipment when it comes to your abs — there’s really no need to do it, because studies have shown that all the best exercises are done without tools.

Sure, you might enjoy having something you bought that forces you to workout, but why waste money on just an ab tool? The most expensive and most targeted ones aren’t really the ones you want to be using, anyway.

#3: An Abdominal Workout That Targets Your Upper & Lower Abs Separately? Forget It.

Most people can’t target one or the other of their ab muscles — when you’re doing exercise, you’re just exercising the whole thing, even if it’s designed to only ‘hit’ one specific part.

Just stick with the most vigorous full-ab exercises and you won’t have problems with separation between the two.

#2: Variety is the Key.

One of the problems with the classic ab approach was that it focused entirely on a maximum of about 3 different ab exercises — usually some form of crunch, and then, hey — another type of crunch!

Thankfully we’ve moved past that now, and we understand that getting as much variety as possible, along with the newly discovered exercises for maximum development, is the best way forward.

#1: Any Fitness Ab Workout Can’t Ignore the Famous Bicycle.

The old ab workouts never featured the bicycle exercise, which involves putting your hands behind your head and then kicking outwards while pointing your elbows from side to side (check a video of it online).

And yet there’s really nothing like it — above all else, this one amazing exercise, which increases your workout by 178%, is what separates old boring crunches from new, great routines.

Ready to get into shape? Now where to begin? Check BodyRock.TV for best workouts, fitness guide videos, diet and nutrition info and much more!