Do you need to work out your abs every day to achieve six-pack abs?
Many people play sports and most of them want to get pumped up. Of those who want to improve their physical fitness, namely to pump up muscles, not everyone wants to develop their entire body and its muscles.
Coming to the gym, many people purposefully go to train some particular part of the body, for example, 45 cm biceps, less often the back, and even less often the legs. But the leaders in this marathon are always the cubes. And when you hear the question: is it possible to pump up the press every day, then there is no doubt. This person is interested in pumping up his abdominal muscles and nothing more. I personally and most people who engage in bodybuilding at the amateur and professional level believe that you should always train in a complex manner.
Although I am not a supporter of local pumping and I think this is not the right approach. Nevertheless, in this article I will try to answer the question of whether it is possible to pump up the press every day. Is it worth doing this at all, are there any alternatives and prospects for this approach. And how often should you pump up your abs? I’ll also try to answer this question.
Most programs found online consist of a set of targeted exercises: lying on the floor sit-ups, leg raises, variations of these exercises to the side, and so on. And it is advised to pump up your abs in them every day. That is, using these methods you need to bomb your abdominal muscles with a whole set of essentially local exercises. But is it really possible to pump up your abs every day?
Most of them are designed to pump up abs at home. People with an analytical mind will immediately ask the question, why at home? You can answer that in the gym you can pump up your abs every day with a different set of exercises. Such as: working on a wall bars, lifting the body on a Roman chair instead of the floor. Although I see the main difference is that it is possible, or rather necessary, to pump up your abs at home and in the gym, not with different exercises or equipment, but with different approaches to methodology in general. But again, let's not go deeper into this issue. After all, this is a topic for a separate article. At the same time, we must deal with another issue.
How often should you train your abs?
Author: Tom Venuto
25.04.2018
When searching online or meeting people at the gym, you've probably heard different opinions and seen all sorts of ways to work your abdominal muscles, mainly because people consider the abdominal muscles to be different from everyone else. Some people believe that the abs should be trained just like the rest of the body. Many people think that the abdominal muscles need to be trained more often, for example, every other day. And finally, you can always find representatives of the fitness industry who recommend training them almost every day.
Training frequency is one of the controversial issues that is never fully clarified, and part of this is due to personal preference and differences in goals. However, scientists have made great progress in the study of strength training, and a number of the most effective techniques have long been identified that most people can confidently use.
Are the abdominal muscles really different from the rest?
First of all, it is a myth that the abdominal muscles are different from other muscles (which means you need to do a lot of repetitions or train them often). In reality, different heredities produce slight differences in the number and distribution of fiber types, but the cellular structure, physiology, and function of abdominal muscles are virtually indistinguishable from other skeletal muscles. Therefore, the abdominal muscles should be worked in the same way as the rest, including the weight of the weights, sets of repetitions and the frequency with which you work the muscles of the arms, legs, back, shoulders, etc. Many people choose to do a few more reps for their abs, although they also respond well to heavy weights and moderate reps, and differences in training programs have more to do with personal goals than muscle fibers.
Abdominal training and muscle recovery
Abdominal muscles, like all others, need recovery between workouts. After intense strength training, muscle tissue is damaged (micro-tears, inflammation, etc.), and it needs some time to recover from the training load. The need for recovery is one of the reasons why abdominal training is so common compared to any other part of the body. This is usually twice a week, give or take, although there are exceptions.
If you need to properly work out a lagging body part or just want to get the most out of it, then one way is to train more frequently. But even in this case, a recovery period is required, usually at least 48 hours. Therefore, three times a week or every other day is the maximum frequency of training, including abdominal muscles.
Why you shouldn't train your abdominal muscles every day, even when possible
Non-strength training, including bodyweight exercises and calisthenics, and moderate-intensity cardio can be done daily so that the body has time to recover. This is why most bodyweight exercises do not damage muscle tissue as much as intense work with additional weights. And that's why you sometimes meet people, many of whom are very fit and have a great figure, who are able to do squats, push-ups, etc. almost every day.
Tags:
MUSCLES
Press
How often should you pump your abs?
Practice clearly tells us that not very often. The fact is that if you pump up your abs every day, you won’t get any additional effect. These exercises will not help you lose weight or improve your appearance or reduce your waist size. There are two main methods of performing exercises, namely, for mass and for endurance. In practice, that is, in life, such a property of the abdominal muscles as endurance can often be useful.
Endurance training involves performing a small number of approaches, often just one for the maximum number of repetitions. Some uniques are capable of performing several thousand repetitions, but this is rare. They say that Kostya Tszyu, when he competed in the ring, could pump up his abs for 40 minutes without stopping.
The second type of workout is designed to increase abdominal muscle mass. It would be appropriate to call such a workout “pumping up the abs”; it can form six-pack abdominal muscles. Exercises in this type of training are performed in 4-6 sets of 12-15 repetitions. You can sometimes perform up to 20 repetitions, but no more. This type requires performing the complex every other day. That is, you do not need to pump up your abs every day, but with a break of 48 hours, which should be enough to restore the abdominal muscles.
Some guys claim that 24 hours is enough for abdominal muscles to recover. They say you can pump up your abs every day. They say they don’t hurt, which means everything is fine and you can start training again. But muscle pain does not mean that they are growing, and its absence does not mean that the muscles have recovered. If some muscles take up to 72 hours, what makes abs unique?
Let's now summarize.
Daily abdominal workouts: a path to success or a waste of time?
All beginning athletes who want to achieve results in a short period of time try to do more repetitions without dosing the load. However, for some reason, the abs on my stomach never show up.
What is the reason? Is it possible to pump up your abs every day? Let's find out! I suggest you familiarize yourself with the results of my research, which took into account the opinions of qualified doctors and professional athletes:
- The abdominal muscles are no different from the muscles of the back or abdomen, so the same rules apply to them. If you carry out identical workouts every day, then at the cellular level in the muscles there is an “adaptation” to the loads, so their growth slows down. The effectiveness of exercises decreases every day more and more.
- Friends, if there is an impressive layer of fat on the stomach, then even with diligent training, the relief will not appear. You will have beautiful, pumped up abdominal muscles, but they will not be visible at all.
- Daily abdominal exercises are a possible cause of chronic diseases associated with the skeletal system. Too frequent twisting of the torso can “cause” displacement of the spinal discs or deform your posture.
See also: Is it possible to combine alcohol and exercise? Whether it's worth it is up to you to decide
From what has been written above, it becomes clear that constant training is not only a waste of energy, but also a risk of problems with the back and neck. Do we really want to lose weight and pump up our abs at this price?
The main thesis: “If you pump your abdominal muscles daily for 3-4 sets, doing 20 repetitions, and perform the same actions 2-3 times a week, the result will be the same.” ?
Is it necessary to pump up your abs every day?
Almost all programs for pumping up the abdominal muscles involve doing exercises every day. Ab programs have the usual set of exercises—lying sit-ups, lateral crunches, and lying leg raises.
For the most part, they are focused on abdominal exercises at home. Programs for training the abdominals in the gym also include work on the wall bars, Roman chairs, and horizontal bars.
Does it make sense to do abdominal exercises every day?
As practice shows, of course not. Exercises for the abdominal muscles practically do not help you lose excess weight and even improve your appearance by reducing your waist size. There are two methods of performing abdominal exercises - for mass and for endurance. In practice, abdominal muscle endurance is most often used.
Abdominal endurance training
This type of abdominal training involves a minimum of approaches, with a limit of just one approach for maximum repetitions. Someone is able to perform abdominal exercises for several thousand repetitions. Rumor has it that Kostya Tszyu, when he was still boxing in the ring, could work on his abs for up to 40 minutes without stopping.
Abdominal muscle training for mass
The second type of training is suitable for increasing the mass of the abdominal muscles; this type of training is usually called “abdominal pumping”; it leads to the long-awaited abs on the stomach. Abdominal exercises are performed in 4-6 sets of 12-15 repetitions with additional weights; sometimes it is allowed to perform up to 20 repetitions in one approach. This program involves training the abdominal muscles every other day. 48 hours will be more than enough for the abdominal muscles to fully recover.
Some athletes claim that it does not take much time to restore the abdominal muscles - 24 hours is enough, but if the muscles do not hurt, this does not mean that the muscles have had time to fully recover.
Only abdominal endurance training requires daily training. But they won't help you achieve six-pack abs. The second training method without an appropriate diet will not help either. It accounts for up to 90% of success.
There are several more options for training the abdominal muscles. For example, a three-day hammering, followed by a three-day rest. In any case, it makes no sense to do abdominal exercises every day. Even if you are working on muscle endurance, try to dilute your program with various exercises.
For example, on the first day, do body lifts, on the second day, leg raises, on the third day, crunches, etc. If you feel that your abdominal muscles are tired, you can take a short break for a few days.
