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Today we are going to talk about how often you should train your abdominals . We’ll cover how many times a week, how long, how many exercises and when to do them during your workout.

Your abs are like any other muscle in your body is the quick answer . They require time to recover and they need to be stressed in order to develop strength and endurance. As we have mentioned even if you do thousands of sit-ups it is not really going to make that much of a difference in your ability to see your abdominals. If you do thousands of sit-ups a day, that is going to develop better endurance in that trunk-flexion type of motion. That is about it.

If you want to gain strength in your abdominals , there are a lot more advanced concepts about core training which I will talk about a little later on.

Understand this; if you are in a sporting endeavour and you require your core to be strong and able to respond to explosive movements, you have to train it that way. If you are just looking for a sexy beach body, that is a little bit different. Still, sit-ups are not the way to go about getting that look.

When we look at how often to train, we are talking about performing static exercises first such as planking, bird dogs, side bridging, etc. You must develop inner core stability and then we can work up from there .

I don’t believe that training every day is good for your body . Just like working your biceps or any other muscles every day is not a good idea. Rest and recovery is significant for muscles to get stronger and grow .

Every other day is probably what I would recommend . If you are working your abdominals 3-4 times a week that is fine. How long should you do abdominal exercises for during a workout? In general I think 10-15 minutes maximum is all you need.

The idea behind abdominal training is to incorporate proper full-body movements ; if you want to see your abdominals you need to burn fat which is going to come about through full-body movements and not abdominal exercises. You are already getting a lot of core integration and abdominal recruitment through those movements.

Front squats, overhead squats, squat presses, pull-ups, etc. All those type of big movements are going to recruit your abdominals to a much greater degree than a single little sit-up. The sit-up is such a small movement and recruits just the rectus abdominis muscle group; six (eight) pack muscle.

You have to understand that you are going to be recruiting your core in every other movement and in every exercise in the gym . You need to be able to give your abdominal muscles time to fully recuperate to the best of its ability.

Every other day should be fine for 10-15 minutes . How many reps and how many exercises you should do really depends. There a ton of different ways to get lean and train your core and it really boils down to what goals you have. As I mentioned earlier, if you are an athlete looking to train for a specific sport, your training goals for core and abdominal work will be very different from someone who is just looking to look good on the beach.

This is a very tough answer to give . You have got to start off with basic movements and then get more advanced month after month after month. The initial goal is to develop better endurance in the core; not necessarily better strength. We are not looking at putting a 10-lb weight on your chest and doing sit-ups.
To give yourself better stability and tone your core, you should be focusing on developing better endurance through your deeper abdominal muscles . I am a believer that if you focus initially on endurance and then work toward strength, you are going to be a lot better off.

For instance, one of your muscles known as the transverse abdominis is kind of like your natural waist belt. When it is contracted, it actually constricts your waist. It is like putting on a tight pair of pants as it tucks in your belly button. When that muscle becomes more toned and gains more endurance, it will keep your waist in tighter. One of the best workouts to activate and brace these muscles to give you better tone are planks and side planks .

In general, every day is not the way to go . Thousands of reps are not the way to go. You are looking at building endurance mainly through static exercises first and then building up on strength subsequently. Lastly, incorporate dynamic exercises like sit-ups and knee raises if you want, once you have a stable foundation of static exercises that have developed good spinal and deep core muscle stability and also a great way to burn fat.

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