Abdominal Training

The abdominal muscles are some of the most popular muscles to train by athletes and fitness enthusiasts all over the world.  The only problem is, most people are either using them in training for the wrong reasons, or they are just plain training them incorrectly.  When you look at gyms around the world, there are more exercise gadgets, videos and classes that are specific to abdominal training than for any other area of the body.  Not only that, you can always find gyms packed with people working their abs almost every day, yet how many of the people in all of these gyms have a good looking set of abs? 

Usually it is almost none of them.  This fact should tell us all that most people are not doing the right things to show off their abs both in the gym and outside of it as well.

There are three main reasons that I have identified why people train the abdominal area: 

1.  The most common reason is that people want a thinner, more defined waist and abdominal area. 

2.  The second reason is that people want to strengthen their abdominal area for fitness or sports related reasons.

3.  Finally, people commonly work their abs because they want to protect their back (this is a commonly seen prescription by doctors, therapists, and trainers around the world).

The Fastest Way to a Thinner Waistline

If I had a dollar for every time a trainee or athlete asked me what abdominal exercises are the best to thin their waists and make them look more defined, I would be a millionaire.  Even though it may seem commonsense, (and you know fitness equipment manufacturers want you to believe it) working the abdominal muscles is not a good way to thin your waistline.  This is known as the Spot Theory, and it is actually a terrible use of your time if that is one of your goals at all. The truth is, diet and nutrition play the biggest role in whether or not you can see those rock hard abs.  Let’s face it, everyone has a nice set of abs, just most of us have them covered with a layer of fat.  No matter how much you work those muscles, until you decrease your bodyfat percentage, you still won’t see at thing. 

So the two best exercises I can suggest for developing better looking abs are the table bench press (where you push yourself away from the table early) and the reading of a quality nutrition book.

Newsflash!  The Abs are just like other muscles

Would you curl your arm up and down for hundreds of reps if you wanted to make it stronger?  Probably not.  Most people would instinctively grab a heavy weight and do a low number or reps with that weight and then repeat.  All of us know by now about the Principle of Progressive Overload, yet no one ever seems to apply it to abdominal training.  Take a hard look at how we train our abs “to get stronger.”  Usually it is with a limited number of exercises for thousands of reps, almost every workout with no external weights involved. 

The abdominal muscles respond to training just like the other muscles of the body. 

Use heavy resistance and low reps, they get stronger, use no resistance with lots of reps, they build endurance.  Either method you choose, you are also going to have to leave time for recovery t improve.  If you try to train them every day, increases in strength are going to be hard to find.  Beside this fact that most people are training their abs with the wrong reps, sets and recovery schema, they also don’t seem to apply the Principle of Variety either.  Usually most people just use some form of sit ups and maybe a twisting motion.  The training of the abdominal area requires much more than this to work all of the muscles completely.  Knowing this, your workouts should now begin to add heavy resistance to the exercises you are doing as well as adding new exercises periodically to add a new stimulus to the training.

These new exercises should also have purpose toward your specific goals.  For instance, if your sport requires rotation with strength, like wrestling and grappling, your training better have some of the same.  If all you do is crunches and that is no a major movement in your sporting event, you may be wasting your time.

A great piece of advice is to treat the abdominal area just like you would other parts of your body.  Most people work their legs one day, and save upper body for another.  What about the core?  Why should the most important area that links the arms to the legs be treated any different?  If you are training smart, this region should have its own day as well.  Start throwing it in and you will thank me for the results.

Want to Protect the Back?  Then Work the Back!

Since the muscles of the abdominal wall and lower back are all sheathed in the same envelope, many practitioners believe that the abs are the ticket to good back health.  They are on the right track, but unfortunately, they often fail to see the real issue. There is an optimal abdominal to back strength ratio.  Most doctors and trainers will focus on the abdominal area, train it incorrectly, and completely forget about training the low back.  To strengthen the core properly, the low back region should have the focus, not only because it is more functional, but it is a great way to work the abs as well.  For instance, squats, deadlifts and overhead presses are exercises that are feared by many athletes, doctors and trainers, yet they are much more effective ways to train the core than high rep sit ups or crunches that do nothing more than leave you with a burning stomach.

If nothing else, I hope this article has you questioning your ideas about and methods of training the abdominal region.  To summarize, if you follow a healthy diet, and train properly, you can have the abdominal region you always dreamed of.  If you don’t follow the concepts expressed above, you will probably continue with the abs you’ve got no matter how “hard” you work them.