I’m sorry if this offends anyone, but it needs to be said. Every day at the gym, I watch people spend anywhere from 10–30 minutes on their upper abs, lower abs, and sides. Can anyone tell me what is wrong with that statement? Ten to thirty minutes is a waste of time to spend on abs. In addition, there isn’t any such thing as “upper abs” and “lower abs.” You have a left side and a right side of your abdominals, not upper and lower.
When you do leg lifts or leg raises, you’re only working your hip flexor muscles. It feels like your abs, but that’s only because they’re forced couples, meaning they work together to produce movement. When you do regular crunches, the entire abdomen works. Doing any more than 10–15 reps on any abdominal exercise is a waste because your abs will give out. Then you’re just using your hip flexors.
The ideal frequency for abdominal training is once or twice a week, just like with every other muscle group. At the most, you should train your abs three time per week. You should perform no more than 3–5 sets, and the rep range shouldn’t really go over ten reps. At most, you can go to 20. If you can do more than ten reps on an exercise with proper form, you should start to add weight. That goes for any other body weighted exercise.
If there was a such thing as spot reduction, and we could do 1000 reps of any given exercise and lose weight in just that area, don’t you think we’d look a little funny? People would walk around with rock hard abs, saggy glutes, and flabby arms. All beach guys would have fat legs because they only do chest, arms, and abs. No matter how much time you spend focusing on one area, you can’t lose weight in that area. Your body will equally distribute the weight loss throughout your body so you don’t look deformed.
So how do you lose weight in your stomach? Diet, cardio, and weight training all play a major role in weight loss. Diet is the only thing throughout the day that you have control over. You can determine exactly what calories you put in your body. That being said, it is the number one way to lose weight in your stomach area.
As far as weight training and cardio, I believe weight training is more important than cardio. You can only burn calories when you do cardio whereas weight training burns calories and builds muscle. Building muscle will help you burn more calories later. Muscle is what determines the number of calories you burn throughout the day.
What is the best style of training to do? Everyone thinks bodybuilding style training will make you ripped and help you lose weight. Well, if you’re doing isolation and high reps and eating garbage, you’re doing nothing for yourself except making yourself sore. If you’re trying to lose weight, you should be doing a lot of full body movements or compound movements, which are multi-joint movements. Examples of full body movements includes the clean and press, snatch, Turkish get up, swing, and pretty much any other kettlebell movement. Examples of compound movements include squats, presses, and rows as well as any exercise where there are two or more joints involved.
Why are they better? They’re better because you involve more muscles. The more muscles you use, the better. If you use more muscles, you can lift more weight. More weight lifted equals a higher heart rate, and a higher heart rate means more calories burned. If you’re burning more calories, you’ll lose more weight. How much weight are you lifting with your abs, and how high do you think your heart rate is? Do a set of 50 crunches and then a set of 50 snatches. Or do ten snatches and tell me what was harder.
I personally don’t train my abs for cosmetic reasons and neither should you. Don’t get me wrong. I perform abdominal movements every day. I know I said not to but I have to sit up and get out of bed every morning. Ha ha! I know that was cheesy. Seriously, I do perform abdominal movements to strengthen them.
If you want to train your abs, do movements that call for a static spine. You can either do static stabilization or dynamic stabilization movements for the abs. A good static movement is the plank. Squats and deadlifts are great dynamic movements, or you can do single limb movements such as rows and presses to work on core stabilization. Try this—get a decent sized dumbbell and lay on a bench. Don’t hold on to the bench with your free arm. Press the dumbbell a few times and see if your abs work.
Why are abdominal exercises with a static spine better? There are one hundred reasons. I think extension is the most important one. Most people spend all day in flexion or hunched over. They don’t even know what extension feels like. If you want to fix your posture or back problems, which every one needs to do, stay away from flexing your spine for a week and see if it helps.
Here are two good abdominal crunching exercises that you can do if you still insist on crunching. You can do a stability ball crunch where you start in extension. Curve your back all the way around the stability ball so that you have a good stretch in your abs and your head is nice and relaxed. Keep your eyes on the ceiling and take a deep breath. Slowly crunch your abs and lift your shoulders and head so they’re parallel with your hips and knees and your spine is completely horizontal. You don’t want your spine in flexion. Exhale slowly and squeeze for 3–5 seconds. Slowly lower yourself down and repeat ten times. Your hand placement will make a big difference. To make it tough, extend your hands all the way over your head. If you’re going to add weight to any abdominal exercise, either put it over your head or behind your head, not on your chest.
The next abdominal exercise is the Yonda sit-up. This movement is normally performed with two, very large kettlebells, but if you don’t have them, you can use medicine balls or something that you can squeeze with your feet. Lie on your back and put the object between your butt and heels. Squeeze the object between your butt and heels, contracting your glutes and hamstrings, and sit up. By squeezing the object, you’ll only be able to use your abs to sit up. When I say sit up, I don’t mean crunch. Sit all the way up so that your chest touches your knees without swinging your arms. It isn’t easy. Try to get five reps.
The number one core exercise is the Turkish get up or half get up. Hands down. I could go on forever here, but I think you got my point. I hope. The last piece of advice I’ll leave you with is if you’re looking to lose your mid-section, pick up a kettlebell and do three hundred swings every other day. It’s as simple as that. For a more structured program, email me. Strength and honor.