Your Abdominal work out

joejoem

Well, Id like to hear other peoples ab work out. I spend about 10 minutes at the endo of every work out. I do cable twists for my obliques, lieing crunches, leg raises and then bench thingies, where I sit on the end of the bench holding it behind my back and extend my feet out and then draw them in.

Oddly, my right side is really developed, there is a biros width between each section of the muscle, but on my left side it is much flatter??

Getting a bit tired of doing what I am doing, I dont want to add weights, I did that before and my abs started to develop out, which is not what I want!!!!!!

amazingemmet

I do weighted crunches, v-sits and some isometrics. Also hanging leg raises toes to the bar style

BossArky

I usually do chin-ups, then whilst resting the arms (but still hanging on to the bar) bring your legs up straight(or as straight as possible)...usually with the knees bent. Do 10 or so each time and build up the reps after a while. It also gives your shoulders a nice stretch just hanging there.

Flex

Best exercises Iv done are ordinary sit ups, cable crunches, 'twisting sit ups' (where you make your right elbow touch your left knee and vice versa), V-sit ups and sit ups on a decline bench. I usually do 9 sets divided between 2 exercises twice a week.

Takeshi_Kovacs

just wondering how effective crunches are, because when i used to go to gym a few years ago, we used to do a lot of crunches,leg raises, but no actual 'original situps' , i used to do a lot of crunches e.t.c. and i had a firm abs, but it never seemed very visible, just flat
but the last week and a half i've been doing situps where i sit at the very edge of my bed (with my feet tied down, to stop me from falling off..)and do situps starting with my head lower than my hips and then raising up. I did about four or five sets of 50 a day for the first few days, until i my belly was absolutely killing me, and i gave it a rest for 2 days , went back doing them, and my abs feel a lot firmer than ever..
I am just wondering can you train your abs every day, or should you give them a rest, and train other muscle groups?

joejoem

Takeshi_Kovacs wrote:

just wondering how effective crunches are, because when i used to go to gym a few years ago, we used to do a lot of crunches,leg raises, but no actual 'original situps' , i used to do a lot of crunches e.t.c. and i had a firm abs, but it never seemed very visible, just flat
but the last week and a half i've been doing situps where i sit at the very edge of my bed (with my feet tied down, to stop me from falling off..)and do situps starting with my head lower than my hips and then raising up. I did about four or five sets of 50 a day for the first few days, until i my belly was absolutely killing me, and i gave it a rest for 2 days , went back doing them, and my abs feel a lot firmer than ever..
I am just wondering can you train your abs every day, or should you give them a rest, and train other muscle groups?

Make sure to keep your back firm and straight as you can, if you start to fail stop immediatley. I would say your core would give up before your abdominals and you would risk pulling a muscle or worse. Sounds good though.

Although I wouldnt do these, they sound like they would be bad for your back, too much pressure on your spine

Takeshi_Kovacs

joejoem wrote:

Make sure to keep your back firm and straight as you can, if you start to fail stop immediatley. I would say your core would give up before your abdominals and you would risk pulling a muscle or worse. Sounds good though.

Although I wouldnt do these, they sound like they would be bad for your back, too much pressure on your spine

yeah there is definitely a bit of strain on the lower back alright, so i might have to easy..
What would be considered as the best/toughest ab exercise, or is it better to have a combination of different types?

joejoem

Takeshi_Kovacs wrote:

yeah there is definitely a bit of strain on the lower back alright, so i might have to easy..
What would be considered as the best/toughest ab exercise, or is it better to have a combination of different types?

Thats what I'm trying to figure out alright, I find crunches in high numbers are the best, very little strain on your back and they mainly work your abs, no other muscles try to compensate. Also the hanging kick one, and then another is sitting on the end of a bench stretch your legs out then bring your feet back in, lean your upper back back while stretching your feet out so you are running at 45 degrees to the floor. Do you get me?

Easygainer

I don't train abs directly, they get worked far more just squatting and deadlifting - you can't support over 210kg without having a strong midsection, and strong, developed muscles all look the same regardless of how you train them.

joejoem

Easygainer wrote:

I don't train abs directly, they get worked far more just squatting and deadlifting - you can't support over 210kg without having a strong midsection, and strong, developed muscles all look the same regardless of how you train them.

You made 210k then obviously. Well done

BrenC

Well I just do crunches and leg raises, but with weights, treat your abs like any other muscle in your body

D-Generate

Just started doing Russian Twists there and I'm finding them pretty damn excellent for the core!

joejoem

D-Generate wrote:

Just started doing Russian Twists there and I'm finding them pretty damn excellent for the core!

Can you explain?

D-Generate

I can't really find any good guides of it at the moment but this article from T-Nation shows a picture of what it is.
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459822

Bodybuilding.com also shows it http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/drsquat10.htm

Just as a word of warning, make sure the form is right or else you will get serious undesired strain on your back. Do the first couple of days without any weight in your hand to make sure the form is correct.

Transform

That is a great article on core training - best i have ever seen!! And the final word on abdominal training

Limerick Dude

all i do is sit ups really....

could someone tell me what the crunch's are? as they sound pretty effective!

temp_boards

What I have been doing lately has had fantastic results. Do your normal abb routine, get the muscles clenched then do lat pull downs with a v-bar. I did this about two weeks ago by accident, I had to wait for the pull down machine so went and did my crunches. I did the pull downs with heavy weights and it stung nicely. When I got home and lay down that night my abbs were really tight and actually were putting pressure on the shake I had making me feel a bit ill!

Anyway two weeks on, the results are coming through bit by bit. much tighter now than it was and shape is excellent.

t-ha

Easygainer wrote:

I don't train abs directly, they get worked far more just squatting and deadlifting - you can't support over 210kg without having a strong midsection, and strong, developed muscles all look the same regardless of how you train them.

Ditto - except the numbers . Is that for squat or deadlift? Walking out the weight also gives you all the obliques etc. etc. that you could ever want. After that, six-pack is about body fat. I suppose sometimes I do L-chins & dips, and I have been known to do a barbell turkish get-up more than once (mostly for the looks of horror on every ones faces ).

Doing any DB exercise uni-laterally also hits the core without wasting too much time on it. I like to get to get in and out of the gym in well under an hour if I can so spending 10 mins doing crunches makes zero sense to me.

T-SPA

t-ha wrote:

Ditto - except the numbers . Is that for squat or deadlift? Walking out the weight also gives you all the obliques etc. etc. that you could ever want. After that, six-pack is about body fat. I suppose sometimes I do L-chins & dips, and I have been known to do a barbell turkish get-up more than once (mostly for the looks of horror on every ones faces ).

Doing any DB exercise uni-laterally also hits the core without wasting too much time on it. I like to get to get in and out of the gym in well under an hour if I can so spending 10 mins doing crunches makes zero sense to me.

now now now.(this goes to easy gainer also) Muscles do not look the same no matter how you train them. Its how you train them that makes them look different. Plenty of guys push big numbers(like ye) , but that's all ye are interested in..numbers. I've squatted 160kg for 20 with perfect form and looked crap, and had a dodgy back. Now I dont squat with barbells at all. I lunge one-leg bodyweight, use a hip belt with plates for squatting and my thighs are bigger and better than ever. If needed I can still push out to my max on the squat(but why bother training the nervous system- skill, doing everything possible to heave a weight up, not feeling the muscles adequately). Make the lighter weight as difficult as possible, train to absolute failure in 3 or 4 sets and crawl out of the gym. I know what I'd rather do.

amazingemmet

Hey cork rob, way to dig up 7 month old posts. Personally i think nervous system is more important if you aim for perfromance.

abetarrush

I do situps: Normal and obliques

Gonna start goin to the Abs classes in the gym

Also, if you keep ur stomach forward on the Crosstrainer, this works ur abs 2

the-lad

i'm doing the hardball work out from augusts mens health. feels good!

Myksyk

Here's something interesting about ab workouts. The ab rocker doesn't fair that well!!

boardmember

Russian twists are the definatley the best abs workout I have used. I normally use a 5kg weight. The results are amazing after two weeks. Great for core!

King of Kings

ab curler (15 slow then count to 10 then 15 at speed - do 3 sets of that)

cable pull down

Obliques

weighted leg raises ( 3 sets of 10, 8, failure reps)

the plank (i think that's what it's called) or maybe it's called the bridge - i'm sur eyou know