Your fat burning time is best spent elsewhere on more effective
training. High rep crunches don't work the ab muscle intensely
enough to develop it, which is what you need to do. So endless
high rep crunches fail on both counts - poor muscle building
and poor fat burning. Two thumbs down as the cliche goes.
Another important key to understand is that the abs are
a muscle and should be trained as such. Why would you train
your abs in a radically different fashion compared to all
your other muscles? Yet this is what most people do. You
don't need high reps and lots of sets to work your abs.
This just leads to overtraining.
Yes, abs are a more endurance oriented muscle so slightly
higher reps may be more effective. Think about how you train
your calves. Even though you may perform higher rep sets
than you would on your bench press, you need to focus on
increasing the resistance. And keep your reps per set to
25 or less
You should be increasing the weights on ab exercises, just
like your other exercises. The stronger your abs, the better
they will look when the fat is stripped away. Ever see a
really thin guy with a flat stomach but no abs? The abs
haven't been trained and aren't developed enough to stand
out even when the fat is stripped away.
Sometimes the most effective ab training program you can
use is one in which you don't train the abs. What the heck
do I mean by this? Well, your abs get a lot of indirect
work from other exercises so you really won't need more
than a couple of hard sets of weighted crunches to work
your abs.
Your abs are a factor in exercises such as squats, deadlifts,
seated or standing presses, dumbbell pullovers, pulldowns,
etc. Don't believe me? Next time you work out, do a few
hard sets of standing stiff armed pushdowns on the lat machine
and tell me your abs aren't sore the next day. I did them
yesterday and my abs are more sore than my back today.
In fact, some of my favorite ab exercises aren't even considered
ab exercises. These include heavy high rep squats and deadlifts,
stiff-arm pushdowns, tricep pushdowns, and cross-bench dumbbell
pullovers.
If you want to develop a flat stomach with your abs visible,
you need to treat your abs like a muscle and train that
way. And you need to strip away the fat with a proper training
and nutrition program designed around total fat loss, not
trying to spot reduce through endless crunches.
Here are four more ab training myths you need to be aware
of so you can develop an effective ab training routine that
gives you results.
1 - Training your abs consistently will eventually
give you the flat stomach or six-pack that you want.
No. It's not gonna happen if your abs are covered by a
layer of body fat and doing endless sets of ab exercises
is not the way to rid yourself of that excess body fat.
2 - Train your abs everyday for best results.
Again, no. Your abs are a muscle, just like your chest,
lats, arms and so on. You should train your abs just like
these other muscles, with progressive resistance and high
intensity - then allow them to rest and recover. Never train
your abs more than 3 days a week. I know I've mentioned
this a few times already and that's because it's extremely
important and too many peple don't make the connection.
3 - You need to do hundreds or reps and feel the
burn to get great abs.
Again the answer is no. The abs are a muscle just like
I mentioned above. To get six pack abs you need to strip
off the fat, but you also need to build the abs to get them
to really pop out.
If the muscle isn't developed, you'll just have a flat
stomach but no abs. The name of the game is progressive
resistance for sets of 8 - 25 reps, just like your other
muscles. This also helps to prevent injuries. If you weight
train with exercises like squats and deadlifts, you're strengthening
your lower back with heavy resistance. If you don't do the
same for your abs, you'll develop a muscle imbalance in
your core, which could leady to injury.
4 - Train the abs with lots of sets and high reps
to burn off stomach fat.
You guessed it. This is also false. Spot reduction just
isn't going to happen as much as we'd all like it to. You
can't burn fat on your stomach by doing endless crunches.
All the pieces of your routine must fit together. You need
to put together a proper weight lifting program, nutrition
plan, and cardio plan in order to rid your stomach of that
stubborn layer of fat and bring yout your abs. And you
need to train your abs like a muscle, with progressive resistance,
in order to be able to see those abs once you're melted
the layer of fat away.
Eliminate these ab training myths from your routine will
take you a long way toward finally getting the abs you know
you deserve. Stop being frustrated by a lack of progress
and start seeing results!
>>
Click here for Gregg Gillies' "Fit Physique" e-book
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