British gold-winning heptathlete Jessica Ennis's abs have got the world talking and now a company is promising we can have abs that rival hers in just one month, without doing thousands of crunches.
The makers of Comfort Zone body strategist and abdomen patch claim sticking a patch onto your abs for an hour twice a week will melt away fat leaving you with a rock hard six-pack.
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They claim the key ingredient, suaeda maritime, breaks down compound fats and lipids in the abdomen area.
But Jarrod Meerkin, spokesperson for Exercise and Sports Science Australia, told ninemsn that he would need to see some solid independent research before believing it could work.
"In all the scientific literature, there is still no product, exercise or diet that results in site-specific fat loss," he said.
So if you want rock-hard abs, Meerkin said you've got to work for it.
"Abs like Jessica Ennis, that comes down to an amazing amount of hard work over many years," he said.
In fact, reducing fat levels will have a bigger impact on abs than lots of strength work.
"You know if you do bicep curls and your arm gets bigger, well when you do ab work, the abs get thicker so they push out further," Meerkin said.
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"You can develop all of the abs you want, but if you've still got a layer of subcutaneous fat over the top of them, you're still not going to see them –– all you're going to do is push your stomach out a little bit further. You still need to do some form of overall energy-burning activity and dietary intervention to decrease fat mass from the body."
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