Abdominal exercises?

TXMary2

I know when lifting weights when reps 9-12 stop being a challenge that you increase the weight and continue to do the same number of sets/reps.... right?

What do you do with ab exercises? Just increase the number of sets, reps or both? There is an exercise I do at the gym - it is called an Absolo machine. Basically, I lean back while holding a 6 pound ball over my head and as I sit back up I toss the ball and it rolls back down to me. I do 3 sets of 12. They are becoming easier and my abs are no longer sore from it. What do I do?

derekj222

use a heavier ball and start doing other ab exercises. Crunches, sit ups, hanging leg raises, etc

Chieflrg

I'm not a big support of iso abs exercises, but I would do exactly what derek said. Heavier ball if you're set on doing it, though I think hanging leg raises are far superior. Pull ups also hit the abs if you're not into barbell squats/deads.

Also being sore has no relevance on how well you worked out your muscles.

MityMax96

TXMary2 wrote: »

I know when lifting weights when reps 9-12 stop being a challenge that you increase the weight and continue to do the same number of sets/reps.... right?

What do you do with ab exercises? Just increase the number of sets, reps or both? There is an exercise I do at the gym - it is called an Absolo machine. Basically, I lean back while holding a 6 pound ball over my head and as I sit back up I toss the ball and it rolls back down to me. I do 3 sets of 12. They are becoming easier and my abs are no longer sore from it. What do I do?

For me, I do abs 2x (maybe 3x) per week.

Today I did abs....
So I started off with L-sits, held as long as I could, then did leg raises (~5 - 7 reps), did 4 sets of that.
Then I did plank for 1 min, side plank for 30 sec, then other side plank for 30 sec, then back to plank for 1 min. Did 2 sets of that.
Then finished up with 4 sets of cable crunches, 15 - 20 reps each set.

I will prolly hit abs again Friday and will prolly do leg raises, crunches, cable crunches.

Sam_I_Am77

Chieflrg wrote: »

I'm not a big support of iso abs exercises, but I would do exactly what derek said. Heavier ball if you're set on doing it, though I think hanging leg raises are far superior. Pull ups also hit the abs if you're not into barbell squats/deads.

Also being sore has no relevance on how well you worked out your muscles.

Agreed, soreness should not be a metric for judging exercise progression. Although I do think that some additional core training is important (even if you do squat and/or DL) for overall strength & stabilization of one's body, especially for the purpose of injury prevention.

TXMary2

derekj222 wrote: »

use a heavier ball and start doing other ab exercises. Crunches, sit ups, hanging leg raises, etc

I do other ab exercises, I just want to know how to proceed when they aren't challenging anymore.

TXMary2

Chieflrg wrote: »

I'm not a big support of iso abs exercises, but I would do exactly what derek said. Heavier ball if you're set on doing it, though I think hanging leg raises are far superior. Pull ups also hit the abs if you're not into barbell squats/deads.

Also being sore has no relevance on how well you worked out your muscles.

Is hanging leg raise when you hold yourself up with your arms and lift your legs? I do those but I can't make it past 3 sets of 10 so far. They are brutal for me!

MityMax96

that is them