Crunches can be good additions to exercise routines but you need to do the right amounts. Find out what 300 repetitions a day can do.
The first thing to note is that crunches are a resistance training exercise to grow and strengthen your ab muscles.
Doing 300 of them every day will burn a few extra calories but you should not expect too much in this area by only implementing 10 minutes of a light workout.
Next, if you can barely complete 6 sets of 50 crunches or 6 sets of fewer repetitions in one session, doing 300 crunches a day should help you grow your ab muscles.
When these amounts become too easy, you likely need to start doing weighted crunches to keep seeing ab muscle growth. Even before that, the version with weights is likely more time-efficient and convenient.
Besides these things, 300 crunches a day will likely improve your ab muscle endurance and offer a few general health benefits to a tiny extent.
How many calories will 300 crunches burn?
While it is not their main purpose, crunches are still an exercise that makes you move more intensely than usual. In turn, you will use up more energy aka burn more calories than usual.
There are some ways to predict how many calories 300 crunches will burn more or less. One important thing to note is that these are rough estimations.
The actual number will likely vary for you due to differences in body weight, exact intensity, hormone levels, body composition, etc.
That being said, let’s say the average person does 30 crunches per minute. In that case, some estimations are that 300 crunches will burn the following amounts of calories for different body weights:
- 125 pounds (56 kg) body weight: 28 calories
- 155 pounds (70 kg) body weight: 34 calories
- 185 pounds (83 kg) body weight: 41 calories
- 215 pounds (97 kg) body weight: 47 calories
It should become clear that only implementing 300 crunches a day or even more repetitions will not be enough to see impressive before and after weight loss results.
If this is your goal, you want to consider other exercise routines and changes in other lifestyle habits like what you eat.
Will you grow your abs?
Crunches are mostly a resistance training exercise for your ab muscles. In simpler words, you typically do this movement to grow and strengthen your abs.
However, that does not mean that doing any amount of crunches will make this happen. How many repetitions you do and with what weight will influence your results a lot.
If you can barely do 6 sets of 50 or fewer crunches, doing 300 bodyweight crunches a day should be challenging enough to grow your ab muscles.
In the case of fewer crunches, the remaining repetitions will even generally not offer that many extra results.
If/when you get to a point where the ranges above become too easy, you can start doing crunches with extra resistance to keep seeing progress.
Even before this point, a shorter routine with weighted crunches can be more time-efficient and convenient.
Is doing 300 crunches a day too much?
As briefly mentioned, doing 300 crunches a day can be too much in the sense that fewer repetitions could be enough to get most of the results. In that case, you can save some time by doing less.
That being said, people tend to be more worried about the every single day part.
It is relatively standard to give the muscles you worked with resistance training at least a day of rest before putting them under a similar amount of pressure.
This is because muscles need some time to repair and grow after you damaged them with the resistance training.
Most people can get the results they want by doing crunches every other day. This also helps them stay away from overtraining and frees up time for other workouts.
That being said, because the abs are relatively small muscles they also recover relatively quickly. Many people should be fine doing 300 crunches every day.
Other results
Most people will be interested in the effects above but doing 300 crunches a day can also result in a few other things.
First of all, you will likely also gain some ab muscle endurance, how long these muscles can exert effort. This can be helpful to keep your upper body upright while standing up.
Secondly, you create and strengthen a habit of exercising and doing something good for your health.
Even if you want to switch to more challenging routines over time to get more health benefits, creating a workout habit can be a good start.
Lastly, you get some of the more general exercise benefits of crunches like better bone density, sleep, and mood to a tiny extent.
You should not expect too much in this area since 300 crunches are only an extra 10 minutes of light exercise every day.
However, knowing about these positive effects could help you motivate yourself to stay more consistent with exercising.
