The Effect of Abdominal Exercise on Abdominal Fat

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of abdominal exercises on abdominal fat. Twenty-four healthy, sedentary participants (14 men and 10 women), between 18 and 40 years, were randomly assigned to 1 of the following 2 groups: control group (CG) or abdominal exercise group (AG). Anthropometrics, body composition, and abdominal muscular endurance were tested before and after training. The AG performed 7 abdominal exercises, for 2 sets of 10 repetitions, on 5 d·wk(-1) for 6 weeks. The CG received no intervention, and all participants maintained an isocaloric diet throughout the study. Significance was set at p = 0.05 for all tests. There was no significant effect of abdominal exercises on body weight, body fat percentage, android fat percentage, android fat, abdominal circumference, abdominal skinfold and suprailiac skinfold measurements. The AG performed significantly greater amount of curl-up repetitions (47 ± 13) compared to the CG (32 ± 9) on the posttest. Six weeks of abdominal exercise training alone was not sufficient to reduce abdominal subcutaneous fat and other measures of body composition. Nevertheless, abdominal exercise training significantly improved muscular endurance to a greater extent than the CG.