How Often Can You Do Ab Training?

Kaika

Kaika

New member
I'm wondering how often a person should do their ab routine. I'm doing it every other day but it's my understanding the abs are one set of muscles that benefit from daily work outs because they aren't quite as delicate as other muscles. Just wondering what the real scoop is.
 
Your abs need rest like any other muscle group. Also if you are training full body you will get more ab work from compound exercises than any crunch would give you.

What is your current routine in detail and goals?
 
Okay, I do dance cardio for at least 30 minutes every other day and on the other days, I do 10/15 minutes of cardio and then go right into weight training for my arms, squats for my legs and behind, and 30 double crunches, 30 reverse crunches and 30 regular crunches, 2 15 minutes reps for each for my abs. All of these excersises I learned from Tony Little tapes. I want to go from my currant weight of 204 to 135. I'd like my waist line to be somewhere in the 20's eventually, I'd even be happy with 29. My stomach is my main problem area.

Question, what exactly are compound excersies?
 
Kaika said:
My stomach is my main problem area.

Question, what exactly are compound excersies?
Click to expand...

Well first off, theres no such thing as spot reduction, so focusing your workout on your abs because your stomach is your problem area doesn't work. Granted core strength is great, but to lose that belly you need to burn fat, period. Areas where you store the most fat usually take the longest to develop the results you want because theres so much to burn from those fat stores, but you need to stay with it.

From Wikipedia: Compound exercises work several muscle groups at once, and include movement around two or more joints. For example, in the leg press movement occurs around the hip, knee and ankle joints. This exercise is primarily used to develop the quadriceps, but it also involves the hamstrings, glutes and calves. Compound exercises are generally similar to the ways that people naturally push, pull and lift objects, whereas isolation exercises often feel a little unnatural. Compound exercises generally involve dumbbells and barbells (free weights), involving more muscles to stabilize the body and joints as well as move the weight.

Because many compound exercises require stabilization of the body, your core muscles are also utilized to a fuller extent than in crunches.

Lower body compound exercises include the leg press, squats, and lunges. Upper body compound exercises include bent-over rows, lat pulldown, pullups, and the bench press. There are more but I'm naming a few so you get the idea.
 
Ah, okay. Well I do do my cardio everday.

I'm confused about something though. I long time ago when I first got my Tony Little ab tape, that's all I did. No cardo no dieting, just the tape and I lost 1 inch off my waist in a weeks time. I have a hard time believing that ab training in itself doesn't work because of that experience. I realize I need to do much more than that but I know these excerises work because, well, they worked for me.
 
Understand that fat loss only comes from being in a caloric deficit. Perhaps when you did the tony little the works helped you burn more energy and you were eating under enough to lose fat. That is it though, that is the only way you can lose fat. Make sense? :)
 
I understand what you're saying but I didn't change my eating at all at that time because Tony Little said on the tape that you didn't have to. Actually, Burger King was right across the street along with a several other fast food places along the same strip. At that time, I was a regular customer. I am by no means advocating people do what I did and nothing else and I'm not excersise expert, all I know is these ab excersises alone worked for me at that time.
 
I understand that, what I am saying is the the energy you expended doing those workouts was enough to put you in a deficit of caloric energy. That is the only way to lose fat. Fat is what will cover your abs. Losing that fat is what makes them show. That is just science, no way around it.
 
Once again, I understand what you're saying but that wasn't the case. I did the excersises two minutes a day and that was it. No cardio, no change in diet, just the 2 minutes of abs a day. I some how doubt that coupled with the way I was eating (like a pig to be blunt) put me in a calorie deficient state. There is defintely something to said for ab workouts IMO.
 
For me, it's the other way round. I hear everyone else saying that cardio is very good for fat loss around your stomach area (my main problem), and that ab excercices should only be done 2-3 times a week. Well, for me, I have been wanting to reduce my waistline (my ONLY) goal, but from all the 'fat-burning cardio' talks that help get rid of the fat above covering your abs, I have been doing some intense cardio, for 4 months. I changed my diet, cutting out all junk, counting calories, and increased my water intake. What am getting now after 4 months of cardio and all, is am loosing weight alright (NOT my goal at all, coz am already way too thin), but funnily enough, my tummy is still big. The loss of weight, and STILL big tummy, makes my body look more weird:mad: . Am re-thinking of changing my whole strategy and just do ab excercises(alone), coz apparently, am staying by the book, and loosing weight in all the wrong ares (less my main goal!).
 
Are you drinking alcohol? Because often, that will cause weight to compound in your middle area.

Before I was a heavy drinker, I had a stomach like an ironing board. When I started binge drinking (early thirties) my stomach got very doughy and distended despite exericize and diet. Age and alcohol.

I quit drinking two years ago and the stomach is slowly getting back to normal, but it's hard going. I realize the only way to get it fit and toned again is to reduce calories, lose the fat, do my strength exercizes, and practice good posture.
 
Look, if you are trying to say that some magical exercise program was able to bend the laws of physiology, thermodynamics, biology and so on.... I don't think you are going to get any believers from anyone who is educated in the crowd.

You can't turn fat into muscle or vise versa. It doesn't happen like this.

I promise, you were not controlling all variables to exactly to know for sure that the exercise is what changed your physique. Nobody is, and I have been doing this for a long time. Telling me that you ate fast food at the time assures my assumption that you did not control all variables at the time.

That said, it is impossible to know what created the energy deficit that led to fat loss. But the bottom line is.... there was an energy deficit. Period.
 
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