Hey there, beautiful human. You're listening to Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter,

a podcast where I empower you to just be you. With each episode, I dish you a dose of real talk

and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving

your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace your real. Let's get and let's go. Hello and welcome back to another episode on the Embracerer podcast. Today we're doing a little myth busting because if you've been putting in the effort, you've been showing up for your workouts, but not actually seeing the changes that you want in your body, the chances are that you've been spending time on the wrong moods. And I say this with so much love because trust me, I've been there for a decade of my life. I was there. I wasted so much time on exercises that felt like they were doing something, but they weren't actually moving me closer to my goals. And I don't want that for you. So in today's episode, I'm going to be breaking down five

exercises that don't actually build the body that you want. And of course, I'm going to be

giving you some simple swaps that you can do instead. With that being said, I first wanted

to share the super sweet review. It comes from Jenna T623. She gave a five-star review

and said everything is aligning. I recently joined Movement with Julie Workout Up. I started listening

to the podcast and more recently I have re-found my faith. The podcast just aligns and encourages

with all of my beliefs. When Julie speaks, I feel like a dear best friend is talking

words of wisdom. To me, I always feel lighter, breathing easier and less scattered. Thank you so much

for tuning into the podcast. I'm so grateful for you and thank you for taking time out of your

day to send in this review. It really does mean the world to me and our team just kind of know

how the podcast is helping you maybe a specific episode or just in general. We would love to hear from you. All right. Let's dive right into today's episode. Exercise number one is endless crunches. I want to start with the classic, which is crunches. If you've ever done 100 crunches a night hoping for abs, I need to be real

with you. Crunches alone are not going to build the strong defined core that you're after. Trust me, I did this for so many years. I would, you know, scroll on Pinterest and it would be like the perfect ab workout and it would be 100 crunches, 100 sit-ups. And that's what I would do every single night. and I'm like, why am I not getting the strong core that I'm after?

But here's why.

Crunch is mainly target one surface muscle, and that is your rectus abdominis. That's the strip down the front that people call the six-pack. When you curl up, that's the muscle doing most of the work, but your core is way more than just that strip. Your core is actually an entire

system of muscles that wrap around your torso like a natural weight belt. The deeper muscle

is called the transverse abdominis, and that works almost like a core set, pulling everything

in tight to stabilize you. You also have your obliques that run along the sides to help you twist,

rotate, and resist side-to-side

forces. Your multifidus and other spinal stabilizers protect your back by keeping that vertebrae

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