Abdominal exercises?

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TXMary2
TXMary2 Posts: 25 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
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?

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  • derekj222
    derekj222 Posts: 370 Member
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    use a heavier ball and start doing other ab exercises. Crunches, sit ups, hanging leg raises, etc
  • Chieflrg
    Chieflrg Posts: 9,097 Member
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    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
    MityMax96 Posts: 5,778 Member
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    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
    Sam_I_Am77 Posts: 2,093 Member
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    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
    TXMary2 Posts: 25 Member
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    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
    TXMary2 Posts: 25 Member
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    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
    MityMax96 Posts: 5,778 Member
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    that is them

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