All about abs

After what seemed like an endless winter, mercifully the sun has peeped out from behind the clouds and allowed us to warm up again. This can only mean one thing; all of a sudden people will become terribly concerned about abs. 

The fact is that a lot of hype surrounding this fabled body part has left the public woefully misinformed about techniques and benefits. It is commonplace to see people taking part in grueling ab workouts every session to get the shape they want. At the same time almost every athlete will incorporate some abdominal work into their strength sessions to help with their performance. 

So before we get into ab sculpting techniques, I'd like to discuss the myths surrounding ab workouts:

Core strength does not improve athletic performance

• The idea behind this belief is that we require a solid core so our limbs whether throwing or running can have a solid foundation. Unfortunately this does not hold true when studied and the same is the case with functional movement. However both significantly help to prevent injury so don't discount them just yet. 

Stomach crunches are not a good exercise to improve aesthetics 

• People who spend all day sitting down have shortened hip flexors, and as a result they become overactive meaning that the pelvis tilts forwards. This causes the belly to stick out and 6 pack or not they look bad. People conditioned like this who perform stomach crunches further over use their hip flexors and under use their abs complicating the situation. 

• This problem is extremely common, in fact everyone has it to an extent because of the world that we live in. It also contributes to lower back pain and weak glutes, so leave ab crunches alone. 
• I'll do another article on posture soon, as there is much more to this.

Compound exercises train your abs enough

• Assuming you have low enough body fat, compound exercises alone will give you a great six pack. In order to perform a dead lift or a squat the core needs to be fully engaged. 
• Use nature's weight belt, the thoracolumbar fascia along with your transverse abdominals and external obliques to control your intra-abdominal pressure. Suck your stomach in and squeeze your pelvic floor.
• Doing countless ab exercises in a bid to get a 6 pack is a waste of time if you have over 10% body fat, you would be far better off getting a set of squats or dead lifts in, or doing some high intensity interval training to help lose the fat. 

Abs should be trained with high volume low intensity sets

• Abs are just like every other muscle in the body and as such you should give them the same rep ranges as you would give every other muscle. For most people hypertrophy is between 8-12 reps per set for 3-4 sets. Doing 100 crunches 3 times a day is just going to make you tired and sore. 48 hours recovery is necessary if you aren't training them with compound exercises, if you are then you'll probably need even more. 

Abs are the final piece of the the puzzle and unfortunately they are also the toughest to achieve. Simply put you won't ever have a washboard stomach without paying close attention to your diet and training hard. 

However the appeal is hard to argue with and sometimes people do want to increase the size of their abs. If this is you then here is what to do. 

1. Keep the rep range moderate and the intensity high
2. Perform exercises with a full range of motion
3. Keep tempo slow, with the muscle under tension
4. A good alternative to a crunch is a frog crunch
5. Allow enough recovery time
6. Treat your abs the same as the rest of your body!