TheGoodDoctor’s BodyBlog

Hey everyone!

Today i want to talk about training of abdominals.

Personally, i think a lot of people are way overtraining when it comes to abdominal work. Essentially, the abs, are like any other muscle, and thus, will develop the same as any other muscle. They need rest and recuperation in order to grow and develop. Daily training in my opinion simply leads to catabolism and adaptation, two things any bodybuilder wants to avoid at all costs. A lot of my friends, who are also bodybuilders train abs daily, which i think is needlessly excessive. I mean, would you train biceps every day? of course you wouldn’t! Training a bodypart every day is far too much in my opinion, and this goes for the abdominals as well

A lot of people forget, the abs are the key stabilisers of the trunk. when you do free weight training, in particular overhead work (ie, a shoulder press) the abodominals are already working in order to stabilise the core. Most likely each time you go to the gym, they are very likely getting a workout. Thus, specific daily abodominal training on top of that seems way excessive to me, and as with most types of overtraining, is most likely counterproductive.

Myself, i train my abs like any other bodypart, once a week. No more, no less

The excercises i do are as follows:

i)Hanging knee raise

ii)Standing cable crunch

iii)Jacknifes

iv) Twisting crunches

Contrary to popular belief, a ton of abdominal training will not give you ripped abs! i repeat, will not give you ripped abs!

Will you develop the core by abdominal training? Yes

Will you get a shredded core? No

This will only come about via dropped your bodyfat % into single digits. So next time you see another gimmicky ab machine on tv for sale promising to give you a shredded core, please, dont believe the bullshit. 

Now a lot of people are going to read this and say, i train abs every day and look at my abs. Fair enough. But, then look how much time you have spent doing that. Myself, i have got a sliced core just doing maybe 20 minutes of ab training per week. But hey, look at my profile pic and you can be the judge

Ultimately what i am saying is that less if often more, and i think the abs are a good example of this. Keep ab training to once, maybe twice a week and focus and getting your bodyfat down. Then, and only then, will you have the ripped six pack you have always dreamed of 

On a side note, one week down of contest training and i am feeling good. Already starting to harden up a fraction which is good but a little unexpected, for this contest, i should peak nicely in the last six weeks. 11 weeks, and on that note, its time to train

Seeya everyone

The good doctor

This entry was posted on Monday, January 19th, 2009 at 7:37 pm and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.