Regardless of how frequently we shoot down the idea of spot reducing around here, I always see people who are doing a billion crunches each week in hopes of tightening up their cores. When I tell people I typically shy away from core exercises that involve spinal flexion (crunches for example) and focus more on exercises that involve core stability, endurance and anti-rotation, they look at me like I have 3 heads.
Unfortunately for them, a) excessive, repetitive spinal flexion can lead to injury and chronic back pain and b) we more often need our core for stability, endurance and anti-rotation than we do for spinal flexion.
This is by no means a complete list of exercises, but Mike Robertson portrayed exactly what I'm talking about around here in his recent article found here:
Unfortunately for them, a) excessive, repetitive spinal flexion can lead to injury and chronic back pain and b) we more often need our core for stability, endurance and anti-rotation than we do for spinal flexion.
This is by no means a complete list of exercises, but Mike Robertson portrayed exactly what I'm talking about around here in his recent article found here: