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need
not spend a huge amount of time perfecting. We already
use these muscles for stability and in other ways every
day. I say this simply because, unlike doing flyes or
pullovers (two exercises that take the body months to
get the neurological and muscular systems connected to
the point of perfection) working abdominal muscles is
about as simple as it gets.
Personally,
I do about 2-3 sets of leg raises hanging from a pull-up
bar once or twice a week to failure. By saying that I
go "to failure," as most of you know, I go until
I can do no more. I may do a total of six or seven sets
of these in a 10-day period, all for the lower portion.
I
also do bent-knee crunches, lying on the floor, to failure.
And sometimes I do the old rope cable crunches, if for
no other reason than the nostalgia of seeing Arnold do
them in Pumping Iron. Both of these movements I do for
the upper ab region. Other than that, I do very little
for my abs insofar as direct exercise goes. I would recommend
that you do no more for abs than you would any other muscle
group, and as you can see, I do less. When performing
these exercises, I squeeze my abs hard on contraction
part of the set and blow air out as I squeeze.
The
only difficult part about training abs so that they show
hasn't got anything at all to do with training; it has
to do with diet. The simple fact that the more body fat
you hold, the less your abs show, no matter how well developed
they are beneath the fat.
The
paradox of ab training while trying to gain muscle size,
has always been that one needs to gain weight in order
to pack on muscle. And by gaining weight, one ultimately
gains fat. With men, it tends to go right to where Mother
Nature wants to: the stomach, hips, lower back and so
on. In other words, you can train your abs every day until
the cows come home and not a single thing will change
within your view. You build the strongest abs in the world,
but as long as there is fat hiding them, no one can see
them.
The
proper way to gain lean muscle mass without adding too
much around the waist isn't spending 30 minutes doing
sit-ups or buying one of those strange contraptions you
see advertised on TV. Keeping a controlled amount of protein,
fat and carbohydrates entering into your body on a regular
schedule is key to bringing the abs into view, not doing
thousands of crunches or using a device that will end
up in the dumpster.
To
simplify as best as I can, you basically want one gram
of protein per lean pound of bodyweight (this figure varies
for many reasons, but one gram is a good place to start).
You also want to have approximately .25 times more than
that amount of low-glycemic carbohydrates. Lastly, you
should add about one tablespoon of oil or fat for every
75 grams of protein.
The
subject of how many calories you need each day has been
written about extensively, and there is no one answer
that is necessarily correct. Whatever the right figure
for you works out to be, make sure that number is divided
into 4-6 meals in a day.
Once
you have this dietary discipline down and you are training
the rest of your body properly, you will begin to see
your abs show themselves, even if you are only working
them occasionally. Remember, throughout the workout, the
abs are almost always tightened to keep the body together
— that is one of their functions. They are in constant
use during all motion.
In
short, abdominal training is simple. It is getting the
diet and other training down that matters so much, which
is why the actual workouts are not as important as many
people seem to think. Stick to sensible training and eating,
then your abs will come shining through.
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Taken from Exercise
For Men Only (Paul Burke's Over-40 Fitness Column)
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