You’ve been to the gym and heard “hardcore” lifters tell you that you don’t need an “abs workout” and that a regular diet of complex exercises like squats and deadlifts will suffice. Others, though, believe that you can plank your way to abdominal glory. With all the contradicting views, it’s no surprise that you’re still looking for a clear answer on constructing an abdominal workout that works for you.
What you desire appears straightforward: a strong core that allows you to live more on your terms. And it doesn’t hurt if you look beautiful shirtless on the beach. Yet it’s difficult to know what to do when you’ve spent so much time sifting through disinformation, old-fashioned methods, and marketing nonsense from a fitness industry that knows everyone wants a six-pack. Nobody could blame you for feeling overwhelmed, jumping from program to program, or perhaps giving up altogether.
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Knowing how to train properly will help you perform better, avoid back pain and other ailments, and be more assertive in whatever you do, whether you’re squatting big weights, shoveling snow, or picking up your child. You can discover how to do all this while simultaneously losing unsightly belly fat and addressing the question, “What is the best abs workout for me?”
What People Mean When They Say “Abs”
Your abs are just one muscle: the rectus abdominis (RA).
The RA is responsible for the six-pack appearance. However, the muscle is only one part of a more extensive web of tissues known as “the core,” which includes your obliques (both internal and external), a bunch of deep inner muscles like the transverse abdominis, quadratus lumborum, and multifidi, and even the lats, which play an important (and underappreciated) role in supporting your back.
Do you need to know all of these names? Unless you’re a fitness expert. Yet you should know that these muscles, like the cables of a suspension bridge, align that vital center column—your spine. They also let you stand erect, swing a golf club or baseball bat, hurl hay bales with a pitchfork, and do many other fun things that only you can do.
Keeping the strength of these stabilizers in the right balance is essential for your health and performance. Because every muscle counts, most abs routines are intrinsically wrong.
Training your abs directly with movements like sit-ups or crunches (which aren’t the best bang for your buck exercises) will not get you where you want to go. Developing a solid abs workout entails going through three stages. If you follow the steps, everything will work, and look how you want it to. Take shortcuts, and you’ll see how the more basic technique falls short of expectations.
Abs Workouts: A Three-Phase Approach
You must ensure your core muscles are awake and not sleeping during the transition. That’s why a gradual strategy puts you in command of your abs. Consider it like math. If you forgo addition and subtraction and instead learn calculus, chances are you won’t be excellent. Nevertheless, you will see remarkable outcomes when you progress to the more challenging material.
Phase 1: Injury avoidance
Here is where you reactivate tissues that have been inactive due to your lifestyle; this is a much more significant matter than you realize.
Go as far as your typical weekday to see why.
You start your commute by sitting in your car for 15 to 30 minutes (or more if you’re one of the 3.6 million “mega commuters,” driving an hour and a half or more each trip).
From 9 to 5, the routine is the same: You sit in a chair. Your shoulders are forward-rounded. Your spine and back hunch toward the screen. When all reports are filed, it’s time to head back home.
Repeat for eight to twelve hours daily, 260 or more workdays per year.
The core muscles, the transverse abdominis, deteriorate from inactivity when you spend this much time sitting. Even large, prominent forces, such as your glutes, can effectively shut down and stop operating, a condition known as “gluteal amnesia.” As a result, you have poor posture, poor gym performance, and a far higher chance of suffering a back injury. Let’s avoid it, shall we?
Workouts that functionally train the core will help you use those muscles you don’t usually use and give you a better balance of base strength; these exercises can be found in the section “Core Training for Injury Prevention.” It can be a 4- to 8-week concentrated program if these exercises are challenging (since your tiny stabilizers and glutes are “shut off”). You can incorporate these movements into your warmup before a workout.
Phase 2: Performance training
You’ll take things up a notch once you’ve restored your core muscles and shielded your body from the pressures of the daily grind. You’ll work on activities to help you be more assertive in the gym and play better.
You’ll take things up a notch once you’ve restored your core muscles and shielded your body from the pressures of the daily grind. Here, you’ll focus on workouts that will help you strengthen in the gym, play better in any sport, and carry more grocery bags in one trip; these exercises can be found in the section “Core Training for Performance” below. Continue with this phase for another 4–8 weeks.
Phase 3: Aesthetic training
As was already said, having a beautiful set of sculpted abs is the cherry on top. And, sure, you can have abs while eating cake.
Instead of doing a lot of sit-ups or crunches, you’ll do much safer and more effective exercises. You’ll reintroduce some of the ab-specific work that most individuals do too much of. You’ll also learn some ways to look leaner, making your abs shine.
Take note of how this part builds on the preceding one. You must do more than just go to the third portion of this post, make those moves, and call it a day.
Please be patient. Believe in the process. You will have a core that feels, performs, and, yes, looks significantly better.
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