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30th May 2008

Abdominal Training

By Cliff Baker

Everyone wants a flat stomach – but it seems it’s the most difficult of all fitness goals for some people. This article shows how – and more importantly why - to train your abs.

First off, let’s get the “sit-ups will give you washboard six-pack abs” myth out of the way. It’s hogwash. The only way to actually see your abs is to have a low percentage of body fat – generally less than 12%. In fact, doing a lot of ab workouts will make your stomach muscles BULGE, not lay flat. And if you have too much body fat you end up looking more like a watermelon than a washboard.

You need to work your abs, but not over work them. They should be treated like any other muscle group – once or twice a week max.

If you don’t plan on looking like an underwear model, why should you do any ab workouts in the first place? Good question.

In fact, if you lift weights or even do calisthenics, you do work your abs quite a bit during your normal workout. But it makes sense to work these very important muscles at least once a week for 15 to 20 minutes.

Why? Because your abs support your spine and weak abs will leave you vulnerable to all kinds of back problems.

Think about your enormously strong and resistant spinal column as a flexible steel pole – but one that needs guy wires to support it. Those supporting wires are you abs.

Weak abs commonly allow the spine to take too much of the load. This leads to back problems. So strong abs are not just for looks, but also functionally very important in protecting your spine.

There are some sports that require more than once a week – martial arts and contacts sports in general. The reason here is that these sports require very strong and thick stomach muscles to withstand repeated impacts. Looks are secondary.

In order to work you abs, you need to understand it’s not just one set of muscles, but a complex network that needs to be properly worked so as not to affect your posture adversely.

Abdominal Muscles

There are two main groups:

Rectus Abdominals - The most commonly known abdominal muscle, also called the 6-pack. They help you to bend your back forward, the same movement involved in a basic crunch.

Internal and External Obliques – these muscles twist your body and bend your back to the side. Because of their angled position which pulls the waist flat, they can help improve the look of your stomach. Note that although the image shows them on the side, but they also cross under the rectus abs.

Despite all the ads on late night TV for the Ab Master 3000 – guaranteed to give you a six-pack in just a few short weeks – not only are these machines unnecessary, they are mostly junk and ineffective.

Note that many gyms now have high quality ab machines that can give you a great ab workout, but they are not required.

All you need to do are a few simple exercises that target the muscle groups involved.

The sit-up, once the gold standard ab exercise, has been passed by in favor of the crunch. It turns out the sit-up – while it does work your abs – also works a large leg muscle that connects the knee to the back of the pelvic bone and can cause you to have incorrect posture – apart from not really targeting the abs.

You’ll see people doing 25, 50 or even a hundred crunches in the gym, but abs need the same program any other muscle uses – 3 to 5 sets of 8 to 10. This means using weights since almost anyone can do 25 crunches.

More importantly if you plan to really get strong is to increase the load from 5 to 10% per week. If this seems too much, remember how fast you body adapts to exercise. And if it gets too hard, take and extra few days off to recover.

Don’t worry too much about getting bulging abs – even if you are a woman. It takes a long time to add muscle mass – years, not weeks or months. Also: concentrate on keeping your stomach flat during the routine so as not to “pooch” out.

Leg raises, also a common exercise, can put tremendous pressure on the low back, so do these with caution and stop if you feel pain.

The oblique's can be worked with a variety of twisting motions – added to your crunch routine or done standing works fine.

Also remember, when you do normal lifting exercises – especially standing curls – your abs get a workout, too.

Don’t forget to work the lower back muscles – too much abdominal work that neglects these important muscles will also leave you with a bad posture.

Here are some video's to show you how they are done and help you on the way to a great looking stomach: