Working Your ABS True or False

B

babypop2k5

0
Ok, so last summer i was trying to get bikini ready and started going to the gym. i did cardio and weight training and was seeing some results. I started to add in ab workouts and began to get bigger in the stomach area? i did some research and it said "if you build up your ab muscles before u have less than 8% body fat, the abs u have will push out on the abdomonal fat that u still have an u will appear to look bigger"

So i gave up doing abs and have not touched them since. Is this true? is it pointless to do ab workouts if you still have a little pooch in the lower abdomen area?
 
I've heard this referred to as "Britney Spears Syndrome," where an overworked core can actually make your stomach look bigger if your BF% isn't low enough for visible abs (i.e. Britney circa 2007). 8% is for men though. For women, I think you need around 15% BF for visible abs. And yeah there's not much point in doing a ton of ab exercises if you still have belly fat.
 
i doubt it. you'd have to work out extremely hard & eat excess calories to build that much muscle.
you should work your abs for functional use, no need to build up heavily.
 
It really depends on the exercises you're doing for your ab routine. Think about it like this -if you want bigger biceps, you curl your biceps. It follows then that if you constantly curl or crunch your stomach, yes you'll have more muscle, but your abs will protrude and that layer of fat over top won't go away.

The lower abs are probably the toughest region of your body to get really good definition, but the best way to go about it is actually through total body workouts and diet. If the layer of fat is the only thing in way of you showing off your ripped abs, you would benefit more from aerobics and a healthy diet than you would from ab-specific exercises.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top