People spend way too much time worrying about their abs and even more time performing too many sets of exercises that aren't even worth doing. For example, some people will do hundreds of crunches or sit-ups each day and wonder why they aren't seeing the progress they'd like.
Well, first off, the crunch isn't a great exercise to begin with. Not that it's bad, but there are plenty of others that deliver much better results. For example, the ab pike is a much better alternative that not only works the upper ab, but also works the middle, lower and even the arms and shoulders.
Another place where people go wrong is with repetitions. Many people have been led to believe that you have to do hundreds of reps. The fact is, the number of reps doesn't really matter. What matters is the intensity of the work you are doing.
Your body is always adapting to stress, so anytime you do the same thing at the same intensity level, your body becomes more efficient at doing it and therefore, the stress of the work is reduced. And the more you can stress the body the more you force it to improve. But keep in mind, as with everything, you can overdo it.
Remember some of the keys to effective ab training are:
1. Choosing the right exercises
2. Keeping the intensity high
3. Constantly switch up the exercises
Even if you do just these three things you WILL see great results!
Posted by Jesse Cannone, CFT, CPRS, CSPN
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