What's the best way to get BIG ab muscles.

R

realworksuks

2
I am not concerned with them showing up, because I know what I have to do there.

I just want to get strong, big, ab muscles. I have just been doing body weight exercises... should I somehow add weight?
 
I found that doing alot of weighted ab work helped thicken my abs, even though I've gained weight and feel like my BF has gone up a little bit, a 4 pack is still somewhat visible when i flex.
Did lots of Weighted crunches, weighted half sit ups.
Though I regret not working the lower abs, miight have even had a 6 pack by now if i did leg raises and stuff back then.
 
when you say abs, do you just mean the rectus, or obliques too?

Normal bulking rules apply, offcource.
I don't really think that there are some exercises that will just make your abs pop out compared to other exercises, you just need to stimulate them in the 8-12 rep range (rule of thumb) I'll list some exercises that I use though:
Weighted crunches, situps, standing ab pulldowns, hanging leg raises, leg raises.
Full contact twist, russian twists, woodchoppers, side bends, reverse side bends (use a high cable attachment)

I also believe in variety when it comes to both size and strenght, so don't just do situps 3 times a week for 3 months, change it up, take some time before you come back to the same exercises!
 
This is my current ab program... I do each exercise for ten reps and it takes me about 9 minutes...how can I tweak it to make it better?:

~Exercises~ # - exercise name a. -starting postion b,c- motion involved
1. Basic Crunch-
a.Lay on floor, knees bent 90 degrees, feet elevated. Hands at ears, or arms locked over chest grabbing your shoulders.
b.Using your abs, control your upper body towards your knees until just your lower back is on the floor. Return to starting position.
2.Twist Up-
a.Lay on floor, knees bent at about 30-45 degrees, feet flat, and a foot apart, hands behind head, elbows out.
b.In a controlled motion bring your elbow to its opposite knee by twisting and cruching your abs in that direction.
c.Return to starting position and switch sides, bring other elbow to opposite knee.
3.Push Through-
a.Lay on floor, feet flat and 24 inches apart, knees at 45, arms extended out in front of you with hands forming a diamond, palms facing foward.
b.Lift shoulders and very upper back off floor in the same motion of a carpet being rolled, still reaching out with hands, youre hands should reach through your knees and the whole motion should only move your hands about 6 inches foward.
4.Left side Crunch-
a. lay on right side with right leg flat on floor knee bent at a comfortable position to stabilize yourself and the left leg on top of the right in the same position. Right tricep flat on floor while the rest of the arm comes across you abs and your hand rests on you left obliques. Left hand resting behind head.
b. Crunch your left side together by bringing out left elbow towards your left hip.
c. For added tension to the obliques have your left leg extended straight out and as you do the crunch motion lift your leg up off the ground as well.
5. Right side Crunch- Reverse above.
6. Up and Twist-
a. Same postion as twist up (basic sit up position)
b. Do a sit up and once you reach the top twist your torso to the left, and then to the right.
c. Return to start and do same motion only alternating twisting left to right and right to left on each one.
7. Leg Raises-
a. Lay flat out, hands under glutes, legs straight. (It may be less stressful on your back to lift your head off the ground as if you were watching your feet.)
b. Slowing lift your feet off the ground until you feel your abs get tightest. Lower back to about 6 inches off the ground. (My motion is about 18" at top and 6" on the bottom, but find where tension is greatest for you.)
8. Leg Tucks-
a. Same starting position as leg raises.
b. Bend your knees as you tuck your legs towards your chest. Your lower back should roll off the floor.
9. 90 Degree Ankle Touch-
a. Basic Crunch position only with arms straight out at side.
b. Crunch up as you reach and try to touch your ankles.
10. Right Crossover Crunch-
a. Lay in basic crunch position, then bring you left leg out with your left ankle resting on the right knee. This is the positon you will stay in for this exercise.
b. By twisting and crunching the torso, bring your right elbow to the left knee.
11. Left Crossover Crunch- Reverse above.
12. Kick Ups-
a. Same starting position as legs raises.
b. Roll knees to face similar to a leg tuck, only this time your whole lower and some middle back leave floor.
c. With abs tight, kick your legs straight up, hold and slowly go back to position b, and then the starting position. Do not use momentum.
13. Head Raises-
a. Same starting position as leg raises.
b. Roll head and upper shoulders off floor, about 1/4 of a crunch.
14. Scissors-
a. Same starting position as leg raises.
b. Raise left foot about 12" off the floor.
c. Lower left leg and bring right leg up. ( find the range of motion that works best for you. )
15. Left crossover twist-
a. Same starting position as left crossover crunch.
b. Complete the left crossover crunch.
c. Instead of returning to the start position, while still at the top of the crunch you turn your right elbow in toward your knee and extend the crunch even further by bringing the righr elbow as close to the right ankle as you can. ( My favorite exercise )
16. Right crossover twist- Reverse above.
17. Head leg crunch-
a. Basic sit up position
b. Roll upper back off floor, while completing a leg tuck with your lower body simlutaniously.
18. Alternating Shoulder Lifts-
a. Lay flat on floor, feet flat and 2 feet apart, legs about 45 degrees, head slightly lifted, triceps flat on floor with arms tucked against your sides, hands overlapped across your abs.
b. Leaving your left side flat, twist so that your right shoulder goes towards your left knee. (Shoulder only comes about 6" off the ground)
c. Return to start and do same for other side, and thats one rep.
19. Hoover-
a. Get into a push up position but instead of supporting your upper body with your hands, your whole forearm is flat on the floor.
b. Tighten stomach by lifting whole midsection away from floor. ( This gives a unique feeling in the abs, but I sometimes replace it with another exercise because it takes away some of the fluency of the program because the rest of the exercises are done on your back, but its worth a shot, good exercise. )
20- 180 Degree Ankle Touches-
a. Same position as 90 degree leg touches, only legs are straight up ( a slight at the knee is fine. )
b. Reach for your ankles are you crunch your midsection.
21- Side bends-
a. Lay on back, feet flat, about 2 feet apart, knees at 45 degrees, elbows pointing out while hands are on abs, head and upper back curled off floor.
b. While keeping your upper back off the floor, bend your left side so that your left elbow approaches your left hip.
c. Repeat for right side, and thats one rep.
22- Alternate Leg Tucks-
a. Basic leg tuck position.
b. Twist slightly at the hips so that your knees are pointing to your left as you tuck them towards the left side of your chest.
c. Do reverse for the right side, completing one rep.
23- Alternating Push Throughs-
a. Basic Push Through position-
b. Do same as your would for a push through, only push through to the left of your knees, return to start.
c. Push through center, return to start, and then push through right, return to start. Three pushes is one rep.
 
how often do you do that? do you do all that in one session? You really only need 1 exercise at the end of your sessions..
 
You don't need all those fancy exercises....
Weighted crunches
weighted half sit ups
leg raises
Knee raises

And if it only takes 9 minutes to do all that, i don't think its being too effective. Just because you feel a burn doesn't mean your making muscle.
 
Karky said:
how often do you do that? do you do all that in one session? You really only need 1 exercise at the end of your sessions..
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I do it three times a week and all at one time, yeah. I don't do it at the gym, though. I just do it at home on my off days. I do a full body workout 3 times a week and then do those on the inbetween days.

I found it on youtube...



Only one ab exercise at the end of my sessions will build ab muscle? You don't mean one set... ?
 
3 sets or something like that, just like everything else.. how many squats, deadlifts, bench and rows do you do each session?

why do you think the abs need that much more work than everything else?

And that many exercises would be more for endurance than size, because of the enormous amount of reps.
 
Derwyddon said:
wow, you're actually setting yourself up for injury and a lot of other bad things by doing that. Especially with only bodyweight. Your abs need to be trained just like any other muscle. One exercise, regular weight and reps. What you're doing now is going to kick you in the butt later in life.
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That doesn't make any sense to me... why would doing bodyweight exercises set me up for injury more than weighted?

I can't think of ways to add resistance to most of these exercises.

And one exercise is not how I train every other muscle. Especially when I do my split routine (Friday and Saturday) I like to get three exercises and about nine sets total for each muscle group.
 
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RWS (Refined Wisdom and Spirit):

Young man there is no need to do that many exercises. In "general" I believe the ab core is one of the least understood circumference of body muscles but can be one of the most precious one seeks. IMO, the ab core should treated like you would treat your other muscles of the body, with the understanding what "type" of muscle you are working with.

When young, say for example, between 12 to 18 (males), I think its fairly safe to say that the ab core (and the entire body for that matter) are going through "traditional" development stages just through "natural" growth in accordance to genetics obtained through the mother and father.

In addition, during this time (and the times post 18), the body will respond to outside stimulus applied upon it and adapt to the stress; however, the ab core DOES NOT and WILL NOT respond "in growth" like the other muscles of the body.

The ab core contains a circumference of "high endurance" muscles and when one considers there primary function (stablize and support, for example), it can be understood why they are. Injure one of your major muscles of the ab core, and you will find out rather quickly just how much they are in use during a normal day, I promise. Take it from someone who knows ;).

I have a friend of mine (and we train together once in a while), that does weighted half-up situps, and weighted crunches, for example. I do them as well. He is progressive with the weights as I am. His abs are short and thin, mine are huge and thick. I know his work, and he knows mine. And they are very simuliar. Both of our abs have "strengthened" significantly and some growth has occurred, put it PALES in comparison to the strength obtained even with reps sub 25.

The point I am making is this: You are young, your core is going to grow at the moment because its in its development stage (I think your 18 or less, correct?), and its going to adapt to the stress applied in accordance to your training,---BUT they will NOT grow like your other muscles--primarily due the muscle composite and their primary function and purpose. In other words, it is entirely "possible" you could pound your ab core with heavy direct training (say sub 25 R) and not get the thick huge abs you desire. If you carefully do a research on some others that have trained their abs, and EARNED their so called six pack, some didnt even apply heavy weight (and their abs were thick and big), and some others have.

During my entire ab training, my "primary" progression was in strength, flexability, and squeeze. When looking through my early pics and from my own personal obversation at the time, I can honestly say that my abs (even with the MANY "months" of progressive weight training, did not get any bigger. They have always been big, and if they did grow any, it is so small I cant tell with my naked eye. Personaly, I feel I could have gotten abs without any training at all, and just let my body fat drop to show it. I just wouldnt have had the added strength, flexibility, squeeze, and to some degree endurance.


The squat and the deadlift indirectly affect the ab core and likewise will strengthen them due to the support function during the exercise. If you are doing these, your core is getting affected here.


The Ab core is ONE SHEET OF MUSCLE and DESIGNED to work in unison. Leg lifts, situps (half-ups), and leg raises---effect the entire sheet at the same time. One can maybe argue some emphasis, but the entire sheet gets worked.

The obliques are "possibly" the only muscle (when speaking about the ab core area) that will respond "more favorably" IMO to heavy weight exercises--if one wants a wider waist :)eek: ).

RWS, shorten the amount of exercises you are doing to 2 to 3 (some could argue more, blah, blah). You dont need any more than about 3 exercises and vary the exercises after a certain amount of PROGRESSIVE training. Be smart in your selection and most importantly, WATCH, LOOK, AND LISTEN, to your body to learn what it responds to the most.


Best wishes to you in all the you set out to do in life and within fitness,



Chillen
 
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I was hoping to hear from you Chillen.

Actually I am 21 and nearly 22 :p

Ok, so you suggest three exercises then eh? Weighted? How many sets?
 
realworksuks said:
I was hoping to hear from you Chillen.

Actually I am 21 and nearly 22 :p

Ok, so you suggest three exercises then eh? Weighted? How many sets?
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I think doing 230 total reps for abs ( as you're now doing ) is a bit ' over the top ' IMO.

As others have suggested, I'd just do 3 exercises as well - like for example, a crunch, reverse crunch and oblique crunch of maybe 2/3 sets of 8 - 10 reps....under a 100 reps in total. And, you can simply tack on your ab routine at the end of your weight workout.
 
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i'm already in the weight room for more than an hour and like to do something during my off days.

Bodybuilders often do tons of reps to grow muscle....

So why does everyone think i'm so crazy? It only takes 9 minutes...

I did an ab routine following some of your guy's advice today, though.

30 weighted crunches 3 sets.
20 reps russian twists 2 sets
30 kickups 3 sets

I definitely feel it more doing my old routine... I never understood the "less is better" approach, it's not like I was overtraining my abs..was I?

Can someone explain?
 
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I like the idea of an abs day. You can give it all you have on that day. If you add it to the end of your routine, obvious you'll be too tired.
 
by doing a ****load of volume, you're not having many "efficient reps".
if you do sevrals sets of crunches (even if they are different forms of crunches, situps or whatever, that hit the same muscles) the first sets aren't tough, how could they be? If they were, you wouldn't be able to do tons of sets!

why do 10x10 crunches with the last 3 sets being the tough ones going almost to faliure when you could do 3x10 weighted crunches (since you don't have the accumulation of fatique from the previous sets) almost to faliure. The first sets in the first approach probably won't tap much into the type II fibers (which are the ones with the biggest potential for growth)

About the abs day, all I've got to say is this. Frequency of stimulation does play a big role in both size and strenght of any muscle. Why do a lot of sets for on muscle group on one day with performance either declining (due to fatique) or the early sets being not as efficient as the last ones when you can spread it out over for example 3 days.

9x10 crunches on the abs day vs 3x10 crunches done every workout (assuming it's a 3 day a week workout) in the second option you will have 3x10 crunches with near maximum weight, which will result in greater work than the first option..
 
Lawlz. Ab wheel=death.

Yeah, the ab wheel continues to be a core killer. For those who think it's nothing, I suggest you get off your knees and try it on your feet.

Why hasn't anyone said squats, dl's, gm's yet?

After a while, using your core to stabalize an enormous amount of weight on your back or in your hands is the best to continue developing your abs.
 
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