We are pleased to announce that on March 4, 2025, an updated Rich Text Editor will be introduced in the MyFitnessPal Community. To learn more about the upcoming changes, please click here. We look forward to sharing this new feature with you!

Exercises

Hey everyone!
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the best abdominal workouts and the ideal number of sets and reps. I am trying to shred up also what foods are best for shredding abs. Thanks! 😊

Best Answers

  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,334 Member
    Answer ✓
    Abs are like any other exercise they’re gonna be difficult to build unless you’re in a caloric surplus. If you simply want to expose your abdominals, provided they’re already fairly developed then you just diet down, when you diet down, you can’t really lose fat just at your abs, you’re gonna lose it wherever your body decides it wants to lose it first

    As far as best exercise exercises, there are several. Hanging leg raises are great however you really want to think of your core rather than just your abdominals so you have a lot of things like farmer carries and some types of kettlebell exercises are really good so just do some research
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 35,450 Member
    Answer ✓
    Reasonable advice from Tom.

    If you have fat to lose, doing that will make your abs more visible, as part of the equation, like he said. To lose fat, eat fewer calories than you burn. If you want to try to add muscle at the same time - which is a low-probability bet - you can improve the odds by losing fat very slowly, like half a pound or a quarter kilo per week, tops. Exercise regardless - at minimum, it'll help you keep as much existing muscle as possible alongside fat loss.

    A full body lifting program with good compound (multi-joint) exercises will build ab muscle plus help your body and appearance in other ways. Specialized ab exercises as he suggests can be added to that for best results.

    Fat will be lost wherever on your body that your genetics determine, in whatever order that determines. There's no way to eat to specifically shred abs. Eat the right calorie level to lose the fat, get overall good nutrition (especially but not exclusively ample protein) to give yourself better odds of muscle gain.

    . . . then hang in there for a long ride, because anything involving muscle gain is a slow process.

Answers

  • rebeccap2021
    rebeccap2021 Posts: 30 Member
    Thank you both so much! Totally makes sense. I have been on a calorie deficit so I’m already winning that battle .. slowly and painfully 😝 dying for sugar but I got this! I’m going to try those exercises that were mentioned. Thanks so much 😊