Help, my ab workout has added 3 inches to my waist

[retired_bopritchard]

I've only been lifting for about 2 years and just recently joined a gym. Since up til this point all my lifting was done with free weights at home most of my ab exercises had been pretty simple stuff. But since the gym had all these cool ab machines, I started using them with maximum weight up to 5 times a week. Well low and behold, I've gone from a 33 waist to at least a 36. My diet hasn't changed a bit. I assume my exercises are to blame. Couple questions

1) How in the world do I get back to where I was in the waist.
2) How do I get a decent ab workout without actually increasing my waistline.

age:37
height:6'0
weight:190

 

[maverickbu]

I'm willing to bet this has a lot to do with fat gain. Pictures would be helpful. Why were you doing abs 5 times a week?

1) Diet and minimal heavy ab/oblique work, stomach vacuums
2) High reps

 

[retired_bopritchard]

Why? Ignorantly thinking that the more and harder I worked my abs the closer I'd get to a toner waist.

As far as diet, I'm pretty strict. Nothing has changed in this timeframe.

 

[LiveFromNY]

arms muscles go OUT. stomach muscles go IN.

 

[junkfoodbad]

Why? Ignorantly thinking that the more and harder I worked my abs the closer I'd get to a toner waist.

As far as diet, I'm pretty strict. Nothing has changed in this timeframe.

"tone" really just means to reduce body fat so it the muscles that are under the fat are more prominent. And you cant spot reduce fat. It comes off in the order that you put it on.

The only way you can lose fat is to make sure you are eating less calories than you need in a day. You can do ab workouts till you are blue in the face, but if you are eating above your maintenance level, it will be counterproductive.

 

[malkore]

Perhaps overtraining abs 5x a week has them swollen because they are so damaged.

abs are muscles, and if you work them heavy, they will increase in size. big bulging abs are a combination of hard ab training to build muscle, shedding body fat to further show them off, as well as having good genetics for abs.