My weekly Return of Kings article is posted, and it’s on ab exercises that are more effective than the crunch. Read, and prepare yourself for the summer.

Of course, I am hardly the first fitness writer to promise his readers a “six pack”, and I’m fairly sure that exact introductory paragraph has been used in the past by one of the myriad “get ab muscles” articles. So, you might ask, what makes mine different?

What makes mine different is that my abdominal workout absolutely repudiates the use of crunches-an exercise that is useless for anybody who doesn’t have a very specific problem to fix: The crunch was invented by the first bodybuilders that used HGH-the exercise was intended to produce a light bit of toning for their swollen roid-bellies, making them a bit more aesthetically pleasing. The exercise does not develop the strength of the core for lifting, does not utilize other muscles as support, does not train the core how to quickly flex for protection from strikes, and will, at best, give you the body of a 14-year old Brazilian rent boy. And if that’s the sort of thing you’re into, don’t let me stop you. Unfortunately, due to the dismal state of fitness training in the United States (And the Western World in general, really), most of the fitness trainers you’ll speak to are completely unaware that there even exist other abdominal exercises beyond crunches, sit-ups, and maybe some of those silly leg-waggling exercises people do on the floor.

It can be found here