Do you exercise regularly to keep yourself fit and healthy?
Is doing crunches the part of your exercise regime to maintain a flat abdomen?
Then you might get a flat tummy but don’t expect to reduce your overall weight as doing crunches has minimal effect on the number of calories been burned by your body. You can burn about 100-150 calories by doing crunches for ten minutes a day, which is indeed a favorable score if you are exercising for 40 minutes a day.
So let us discuss what these crunches are and how effective they escalate the total calories burnt during your everyday exercise regimen.
Contents
Crunches
Crunches are exercises for the abdomen. If you want to sport the six-pack abs, then you should train the rectus abdominis muscles on the front torso below the chest by doing crunches. This exercise will definitely enhance the stability and stamina of the entire body. This exercise is performed by lying flat on a smooth surface, preferably on a mat.
You have you keep your hands behind your head and bend your knees. Slowly come up and bring the head towards the belly button, hold the breath for a few seconds and slowly go back to the original position. Practice breathing while doing crunches to help with adequate oxygen supply for the muscles.
Check Out:- Best Protein Powders in the World
What are calories and how do you calculate the calories burned during a workout?
Calories are generally a unit of energy that is been rendered to us by every single milligram of food we eat. They are the basic building blocks of our body and without enough calories, we will be left with very little energy to perform our everyday tasks. But it is tough to keep a count on how much calories we consume on a daily basis.
For a normal adult, the total amount of calories required is about 2000-3000 calories per day. Anything consumed in excess of this gets stored as fat in the body. Many people follow some amount of exercise to burn the excess calories so that they maintain their body slim and sleek.
Now, in order to calculate the number of calories that are spent during a crunch session, you can use this formula.
Total calories that get burned during an activity = Duration in minutes’ x metabolic equivalent of the task x 3.5 x weight of the person in kg / 200.
The metabolic equivalent is the score rendered to each activity. For crunches, the MET score is 5, for aerobic dancing the score is 4, and for walking 3 METs, etc.
During an intense Crunch workout, it is likely that you will be shedding about 50-100 calories, depending on the number of crunches you perform, and the time duration. A normal person can perform about 30 crunches in one minute and for ten minutes he can complete about 300 crunches. At the completion of this set, he can burn about 50 calories. Even bodybuilders and others who are capable of performing 300 crunches in five minutes or less, still burn only 50 calories.
While during the crunches vigorously you feel sweaty and panting for breath, then you might burn a little more than 50 calories, say up to 100 or 150. The amount of sweat is shed is the measure of the quantum of calories you burn. Heavier individuals tend to burn more calories by doing the same activity in moderate intensity.
Warning: There is absolutely no correlation between the intensity of crunches and the calories burnt. So you don’t have to go an intense crunch workout of 300 crunches in ten minutes. Take it slow, and feel the movement of your belly as you do the crunches.
Factors that affect the number of calories burned during crunches workout:
Different people burn calories differently, even though they perform the same type of activity for the stipulated time. Shedding calories through activities depend on a number of factors and those are discussed below,
On contrary to what we have always been thinking about obese people, they tend to lose more calories than a slim person. This is because calories that are burnt are always calculated per unit weight of the individual. For instance, a person who is 150 pounds in weight and is 6 feet tall can burn about 40 calories after doing crunching for five full minutes. If he weighs 200 pounds, then he would have lost about 50 calories in the same amount of time. Thus, obese people should do crunches more, as the effects are better for them than the others.
Time spent during crunches is directly proportional to the calories burnt. There is a sure difference between the quantum of calories burnt between 5 minutes and a 10 minutes’ work out.
Though there is no correlation between the intensity of the crunches and the calories burnt, it is still good to do them vigorously rather than at a moderate intensity or at a slow pace. This is because doing crunches vigorously helps in achieving a greater number of crunch repetitions in a given time period.
There is a significant influence on the age of the person on the calories burnt by them. With advancing age, there is a decrease in the muscle mass and there is abundant fat accumulation. Thus aged people shed fewer calories than young individuals.
It has also been proven that males tend to burn more calories during crunches than females, who do the same exercise at the same intensity.
The person who is taller and stouter will burn more calories as their metabolic rate is higher than the person who is short and small.
Wrapping Up
Thus, we can conclude that you don’t end up burning more calories by doing crunches. But doing crunches for ten minutes a day will definitely help in toning your muscles and helps in maintaining a flat tummy and who knows, even six-pack abs in the due course of time.
Related Reading:- How Does Playing Sports Make You More Healthy?