Crazy abs?!

not a huge fan of crunches... but I'd keep the planks... you need a solid core, and the planking gives you that. Plus when the core tightens up, it helps suck the rest of it in.

don't toss out the planks!

When you can hold a plank 45-60 sec, continued holding ceases to have any strengthening effect.

A 45-60 sec plank is the ab equivalent of doing 15 pushups. Some might consider this high resistance, but many will find this laughably low.

but what about the effect of changing up your planks... front, side, oblique, incline planking... or superman planks and jumping jack planks? There are many diff kinds of planks, and incorporating more than just the front plank definitely adds benefit.

Granted, if you can do all of that for 45 - 60 seconds each without wanting to cry or vomit... then yeah, I'd say you may want to step up your game... But most people can't even hold for 10.

No crazy abs here but I've heard it's one group of muscle that you can work every day and unless your BF is very low your hard work won't show through.

I want some abs!!!

couldn't edit my flipping post...

It depends on almost 90% what you eat and at what time.

No, it doesn't.



Visible abs are about having a low enough body fat. They typically begin to show at around 12%, and are fully visible by 10%

I'm going to go a bit against the majority here, I don't think core stability exercises like planks are particularly useful if you're doing exercises like squats and deadlifts. They can be used to strengthen your core if it's weak, but after a certain point, you're getting more than enough stability work be doing the big lifts.

Also, in my opinion direct ab work can be useful, although you do reach the point of diminishing returns rather quickly. However, this is only if (a big if) the exercise(s) that you do directly work the ab muscles. Most people think their working their abs directly when what they're really doing is direct hip flexor work mixed with core stability.

No crazy abs here but I've heard it's one group of muscle that you can work every day and unless your FB is very low you hard work won't show through.

I want some abs!!!

not true.

Then expand please.

It depends on almost 90% what you eat and at what time.

No, it doesn't.



Visible abs are about having a low enough body fat. They typically begin to show at around 12%, and are fully visible by 10%

Yup, that's what I meant..
When you set up a decent meal plan and lower in calories at a certain calculated point that you will be losing body fat, abs will be visible.

No crazy abs here but I've heard it's one group of muscle that you can work every day and unless your FB is very low you hard work won't show through.

I want some abs!!!

not true.

Then expand please.

Abs are like any other muscle group and if worked properly they shouldn't/ don't need to be trained daily.

I can go weeks on end or even a month not working on my abs. A big factor is diet. If your consistently under your caloric maintenance, you will lose fat. Lower bf% means having a tighter abs or a 6 pack.

It don't matter how much ab workout or cardio you do but if your above caloric maintenance, that' crazy abs won't come out. It will stay hidden underneath that fat!

mostly didn't work them out when i had them. Deadlifts and squats work them out. However leg raises 2 or 3 times a week are good for the lower abs and the V.

Maybe once a week, more like 2x a month. Just keep lifting, drop the body fat and it will all be there. Good luck!

Work them like you would work anything else. Heavy, and not every day. If you wanted big guns doing one set of 50 biceps curls every day is generally regarded as the wrong way to go about it. If you can do 20 crunches, time to find something harder. If you can do 20 leg raises, find something harder.

Abs are tricky because unlike most exercises for most other muscle groups where you add weight to the same exercise to increase difficulty, most ab exercises are body weight so once you grow out of it you need to switch exercises to one which puts more load on the target muscles.

This is one of my favourites: Bruce Lee - Dragon Flag



If you can do 3 sets of 10 of this you can still make it harder. Pause at the bottom and pedal your legs before lifting up again, superset it with crunches or leg raises...

Obviously you need a good diet to uncover the muscle, but it's not all about diet. That's like saying having nice arms is all about diet, you need to build the muscle as well.