The crunch exercise is a cornerstone of abdominal training. This exercise develops the muscles of the abs to help you build that much-desired six-pack. But did you know there’s a way to perform abdominal crunches that can actually decrease the size of your waist?

The key to this technique is the top position of the crunch where your abdominals are contracted as hard as they are able to.

When you’re in the top position, breathe in and out slowly a few times. Try to relax every other muscle except the abs. This breathing in and out will intensify the muscle contraction (as you will find out very right away).

Here’s how it works:

The muscles of the abdomen are arranged in layers around your midsection, similar in concept to the rings in a tree. While you are contracting the rectus abdominus (the top-most front layer of your abs, also known as your six-pack) continuously, the deeper abdominal muscle fibers are relaxing and contracting each time you breathe.

Each time the deep muscle fibers relax, your rectus abdominus (because it is contracting so hard) will squeeze them in a bit more, making your waist a bit smaller and tighter.

The reason this works to decrease the size of your waist is simple. Usually, most people’s abdominal muscles just sit there. They don’t stay tight, therefore your midsection tends to slouch forward and outward.

This technique teaches your abdominals to maintain a degree of tightness and tone in them even when you are relaxed. This keeps your abs in, leading to a visually smaller waist.

The Abdominal Crunch, when performed in this fashion, can be effective for decrease waist size even without additional fat loss training and eating.

That being said, you will get better results with this exercise if you do use a targeted fat-loss training program while using this technique.