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A question many people ask is “How often should you train abs? download Last Exit “. And this question gets a wide range of replies. Many people suggest that the abs benefit from being trained almost every day, whereas others don’t differentiate it from any other muscle group and suggest that they should only be trained once a week. Others even believe that training upper and lower abdominals on alternate days will provide well rounded development.

So, which of these conflicting opinions is the right advice to follow?

Training abs everyday

Abdominals are basically like any other muscle groups and the general rules that apply to these other muscle groups should also apply to abs. One of the fundamental of muscle devlopment is that you should give the muscles adequate time to recover and grow after a workout before working them again. Therefore, training abdominals every day is unlikely to allow this recovery time.

Training lower abs and upper abs on alternate days

Well, what about training lower abs and upper abs on alternate days, thus allowing adequate time for each section of the abs to recover before hitting them again. Again, this is fundamentally incorrect. The abdominals are actually one single muscle, even though the “6 pack” does not suggest this. Although you can emphasise upper and lower abs, you cannot isolate them. Much in the same was as you can’t isolate upper and lower chest completely.

Training abs once a week

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So you should train abs once a week if you train every other muscle group once a week? Again, this may not be the ideal approach. With the majority of muscle groups, you will put your full focus and effort into each workout, often using multiple exercises and advanced techniques such as forced reps and drop sets. This works the muscle adequately to require a week for full recovery.

However, abs are often trained as an after thought with much less intensity. Therefore, they are likely to recover and be ready for the next workout much quicker.

My ab training workout

My personal routine involves training abdominals twice a week. I select one exercise to emphasise lower abdominals, one exercise to emphasise upper abdominals and one exercise to work the obliques. To keep variety in the routine and try to promote a more balanced growth I will also change the order in which I perform the exercises on each alternate workout.

When planning your ab routine, look at your current workout as a whole. How often do you train each muscle group? How hard do you hit each muscle and do you feel the effects of the workouts the next day? Once you have the answers to these, compare this to your abdominal routine. If you find you aren’t training your abs as hard, increase the frequency. If you find each workout is as gruelling as it is when you do chest, maybe once a week is enough for you. Experiment yourself and learn what works best for you.

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