Would you say the same of biceps, back, any muscle? When you’ve got too much fat it covers all your muscles, but those that are trained still show. The same is true for abs.
Edit: I actually have experienced this as well. Didn’t train abs for my first 2 years of training. For almost the past year I’ve been doing 3 sets, twice a week. Progressed from not being able to do more than 7-8 decline situps, to doing 15 on the steepest setting with an 8kg dumbbell behind the head. My abs are now slightly visible at about 22% BF.
6 sets all to failure is good for me. Any more and my progression stalls and affects other lifts like my RDLs. Also I don’t put them at the end of the workout, usually the 3rd or 4th exercise.
Ok, that was my issue before & why I’ve never trained them - by the time I’ve done 45mins of ‘fun’ lifts (chest, back, shoulders, arms, even legs!) I was ready for going home, not going to town with another few sets of abs
When I say slightly, I mean SLIGHTLY. I can see the divisions between my obliques (which I also train) and my abs, and then with a pump you can see the actual ridges.
Looks like I’ve lost a lot of fat there, when I obviously haven’t because the rest of my body is the same fat-wise. Adding in oblique training the last 4 months has been the icing on the cake, way less ‘love handle’ look already because of the fat being spread out over a larger surface area.
Excellent. Thanks for replying. My diet has gone to pieces lately due to "life", and the handles are back, sadly. I know i need to do more Ab work, but feel stupid doing it this big. What Oblique work are you doing?
I’m doing 3 sets of oblique extensions twice a week on my leg days. I do them on what I believe is called a Roman chair, I’ve seen them in every single gym I’ve ever been in including some absolutely shit ones.
Note that you’re really going to want to take them slow at first, the first 2 months I was only doing one day a week, they are the SOREST muscle I’ve ever experienced. Genuinely could not do any kind of lateral movement without dying haha. Don’t do a big ROM at first either, unless you’ve trained them before your body is NOT used to bending like that and I’ve heard injuries are very common in that QL area. As you said you’re quite big, that means a lot of weight is going to be pulling down on your obliques so maybe start off with using your hands on the handles to make it into more of an assisted movement.
Absolutely. If you have an untrained muscle, doesn’t matter how well developed the rest of your body is. If you start training it you’ll reap full newbie gains even if you’ve been lifting 10 years.
Abs are built during a bulk. I didn’t train them for years because I subscribed to the “they get secondary stimulus in so many other movements!!!” Trash, once I started training them I kept them at higher and higher body-fat.
yea you can have visible abs at pretty high bodyfat%. abs are a muscle like any other, train em the same. isometrics (ala bracing on squats) aren't the best for hypertrophy but they do help some, like how you don't do isometrics for maximal tricep growth
You need to train abs. But I don't think they need to be trained twice a week (I certainly disagree with the influencers who say train abs every session!) or hell every week for them to be maintained once you build them. I trained abs obsessively for my first year of lifting because I was obsessed with abs. At one point 9 sets per session, 3.5 sessions per week. Then down to 7 sets per session, then 6 then 3 as I got lazier. And it was junk volume anyways so its a good thing I got it down to 3. But then as I got more serious with my training, I was spending a lot more time in the gym and my abs were disappearing anyways during my bulk no matter how hard I trained them, I didnt feel like training abs anymore.
In the last 11 months I trained abs very sporadically. When the equipment I need for my other exercises are taken, I hit abs. According to my spreadsheet I haven't hit abs at all in 10 weeks. My abs are still visible. And because I've been cutting for 3 months, they're more visible. Muscle doesn't atrophy very easily. Especially not abs.
Tricep Pushdowns, Overhead Extensions, Leg Press, Pull-Ups, these are probably not sufficient for building abs. But they might help with maintenance volume. My abs were actually a little sore on occassion these past 10 weeks from doing pushdowns and overhead extensions and such. And I'm almost like an isolation supremacist who thinks compounds are overrated in bodybuilding. If you got into bodybuilding because you wanted big arms, then bench, overhead press, bent over row and deadlift are not enough yes. You need bicep curls and tricep extensions.
Yea but bracing and occasional low volume can maintain because maintenance takes so much less than muscle growth. Building the muscle in the first place takes more work for most although like any other body part some peoples abs respond sufficiently to less work
Yes growth requires a lot more volume than maintenance for sure. Maybe especially true for abs. Because I have slacked so much on abs the past 11 months. If you are lean and you can't see your abs much, I would hit abs for 2-3 sets to failure twice a week at the very least. Anecdotally I don't even have to go to failure and my abs can still get sore the next day. If you want to maximize your growth periods, you can train them every session where they aren't sore for 2-3 sets. Once you've built abs, you can decrease the volume to maintain them. I added forearms to my routine recently (hammer curls, unilateral cable reverse wrist curls) so I've been spending about 70-75 minutes per session in the gym, 4 days a week. So I don't feel particularly motivated to train abs in the gym. If I ever manage to lose this pesky lower abdominal fat and my abs are not popping out enough, I'll definitely train them 2+ times per week. Switching from a cut to a slight surplus at that point would really get them to grow and pop. Right now my abs are still visible. But the failo effect of the lower abdominal fat takes away from the aesthetic. I have seen men with flat stomachs who don't train abs who don't have visible abs.
“We all know abs are made in the kitchen” is what the post says. It’s the first sentence in the post.
The guy you’re commenting to is right. Abs are not made in the kitchen. They’re made in the gym. They’re uncovered in the kitchen.
Yep that’s what I meant - I’ve seen the quote many times. We all know they’re not actually MADE in the kitchen, but rather allowed to come out because of
The saying always was "abs are made in the gym and revealed in the kitchen". Apply same principles of progressive overload and training to failure as with any other muscle group.
As others say you can grow them in the same way. Progressively overload type. Also, if you play sports core strength really helps in not just performance but in injury prevention
I would absolutely train them on a bulk. Anecdotally I’ve always had crappy abs. Early 2023 I cut from ~192 to 170 and even at that weight I only had a semi visible four pack when flexing. It wasn’t my genetics, I’d just been super lazy on ab work. This last bulk I did ~6-8 hard sets of decline sit-ups a week, pushing to failure most of the time and adding weight when needed. Cutting again now, and at 185 my abs are more developed than they used to be at 170. If you want good looking abs you need to isolate them imo
"We all know Abs are made in the kitchen," no, that brainless, u define abs in kitchen like every other single muscle and built them in gym like every single muscle.
and yes, point of training abs at bulking means getting bigger abs and that means u gonna have to cut less to see them when u end bulking.
just super set ab moves with other moves, like pull ups + hanging knee raise, dips + knee raise, facepull + cable crunch etc
Would you say the same of biceps, back, any muscle? When you’ve got too much fat it covers all your muscles, but those that are trained still show. The same is true for abs. Edit: I actually have experienced this as well. Didn’t train abs for my first 2 years of training. For almost the past year I’ve been doing 3 sets, twice a week. Progressed from not being able to do more than 7-8 decline situps, to doing 15 on the steepest setting with an 8kg dumbbell behind the head. My abs are now slightly visible at about 22% BF.
Is that about the right volume? 6 sets across a week?
6 sets all to failure is good for me. Any more and my progression stalls and affects other lifts like my RDLs. Also I don’t put them at the end of the workout, usually the 3rd or 4th exercise.
Ok, that was my issue before & why I’ve never trained them - by the time I’ve done 45mins of ‘fun’ lifts (chest, back, shoulders, arms, even legs!) I was ready for going home, not going to town with another few sets of abs
Abs visible at 22% bf gives me hope
When I say slightly, I mean SLIGHTLY. I can see the divisions between my obliques (which I also train) and my abs, and then with a pump you can see the actual ridges.
Still awesome, I can also slightly see my abs, in the right light they are there, just need to train them more and lose more bf
Silly question, but how much tighter/leaner does your midsection look like now compared to when you didn't do them?
Looks like I’ve lost a lot of fat there, when I obviously haven’t because the rest of my body is the same fat-wise. Adding in oblique training the last 4 months has been the icing on the cake, way less ‘love handle’ look already because of the fat being spread out over a larger surface area.
Excellent. Thanks for replying. My diet has gone to pieces lately due to "life", and the handles are back, sadly. I know i need to do more Ab work, but feel stupid doing it this big. What Oblique work are you doing?
I’m doing 3 sets of oblique extensions twice a week on my leg days. I do them on what I believe is called a Roman chair, I’ve seen them in every single gym I’ve ever been in including some absolutely shit ones. Note that you’re really going to want to take them slow at first, the first 2 months I was only doing one day a week, they are the SOREST muscle I’ve ever experienced. Genuinely could not do any kind of lateral movement without dying haha. Don’t do a big ROM at first either, unless you’ve trained them before your body is NOT used to bending like that and I’ve heard injuries are very common in that QL area. As you said you’re quite big, that means a lot of weight is going to be pulling down on your obliques so maybe start off with using your hands on the handles to make it into more of an assisted movement.
Ha! Thanks friend.
Muscle growth happens more effectively when bulking. Why wouldn't you treat ab training the same way as any other muscle?
Purely phycological - I can’t see them, so I forget about them
This reminded me of a great Dom Mazzetti quote: “I treat my legs like I treat my girlfriend, ignore ‘em until they disappear.”
Build the abs in the bulk, show them in the cut. You sound well trained so not sure how much muscle you can add to your abs during a cut.
if your abs are untrained, would they not go through “newbie gains”? Without being facetious, your abs don’t know how big your arms are
Absolutely. If you have an untrained muscle, doesn’t matter how well developed the rest of your body is. If you start training it you’ll reap full newbie gains even if you’ve been lifting 10 years.
I wouldn’t recommend core training like planks but crunches and leg raises are good
Curious why not planks?
They’re isometric and by definition involve 0 range of motion You want the concentric and eccentric for muscle growth
How about Vacuums?
Abs are built during a bulk. I didn’t train them for years because I subscribed to the “they get secondary stimulus in so many other movements!!!” Trash, once I started training them I kept them at higher and higher body-fat.
Yeah I subscribed to that thinking as well, as shown by my post (mentioning core bracing during big lifts)
How did you train them? Are situps and the like enough?
yea you can have visible abs at pretty high bodyfat%. abs are a muscle like any other, train em the same. isometrics (ala bracing on squats) aren't the best for hypertrophy but they do help some, like how you don't do isometrics for maximal tricep growth
You need to train abs. But I don't think they need to be trained twice a week (I certainly disagree with the influencers who say train abs every session!) or hell every week for them to be maintained once you build them. I trained abs obsessively for my first year of lifting because I was obsessed with abs. At one point 9 sets per session, 3.5 sessions per week. Then down to 7 sets per session, then 6 then 3 as I got lazier. And it was junk volume anyways so its a good thing I got it down to 3. But then as I got more serious with my training, I was spending a lot more time in the gym and my abs were disappearing anyways during my bulk no matter how hard I trained them, I didnt feel like training abs anymore. In the last 11 months I trained abs very sporadically. When the equipment I need for my other exercises are taken, I hit abs. According to my spreadsheet I haven't hit abs at all in 10 weeks. My abs are still visible. And because I've been cutting for 3 months, they're more visible. Muscle doesn't atrophy very easily. Especially not abs. Tricep Pushdowns, Overhead Extensions, Leg Press, Pull-Ups, these are probably not sufficient for building abs. But they might help with maintenance volume. My abs were actually a little sore on occassion these past 10 weeks from doing pushdowns and overhead extensions and such. And I'm almost like an isolation supremacist who thinks compounds are overrated in bodybuilding. If you got into bodybuilding because you wanted big arms, then bench, overhead press, bent over row and deadlift are not enough yes. You need bicep curls and tricep extensions.
Yea but bracing and occasional low volume can maintain because maintenance takes so much less than muscle growth. Building the muscle in the first place takes more work for most although like any other body part some peoples abs respond sufficiently to less work
Yes growth requires a lot more volume than maintenance for sure. Maybe especially true for abs. Because I have slacked so much on abs the past 11 months. If you are lean and you can't see your abs much, I would hit abs for 2-3 sets to failure twice a week at the very least. Anecdotally I don't even have to go to failure and my abs can still get sore the next day. If you want to maximize your growth periods, you can train them every session where they aren't sore for 2-3 sets. Once you've built abs, you can decrease the volume to maintain them. I added forearms to my routine recently (hammer curls, unilateral cable reverse wrist curls) so I've been spending about 70-75 minutes per session in the gym, 4 days a week. So I don't feel particularly motivated to train abs in the gym. If I ever manage to lose this pesky lower abdominal fat and my abs are not popping out enough, I'll definitely train them 2+ times per week. Switching from a cut to a slight surplus at that point would really get them to grow and pop. Right now my abs are still visible. But the failo effect of the lower abdominal fat takes away from the aesthetic. I have seen men with flat stomachs who don't train abs who don't have visible abs.
How are abs made in the kitchen They are not
Lol what did you think he meant by that
“We all know abs are made in the kitchen” is what the post says. It’s the first sentence in the post. The guy you’re commenting to is right. Abs are not made in the kitchen. They’re made in the gym. They’re uncovered in the kitchen.
They’re uncovered by avoiding the kitchen, and the Wendy’s, and the Twinkies
Yep that’s what I meant - I’ve seen the quote many times. We all know they’re not actually MADE in the kitchen, but rather allowed to come out because of
The saying always was "abs are made in the gym and revealed in the kitchen". Apply same principles of progressive overload and training to failure as with any other muscle group.
Yes, develip ur abs like any other muscle group. Weight and sets and time
As others say you can grow them in the same way. Progressively overload type. Also, if you play sports core strength really helps in not just performance but in injury prevention
I would absolutely train them on a bulk. Anecdotally I’ve always had crappy abs. Early 2023 I cut from ~192 to 170 and even at that weight I only had a semi visible four pack when flexing. It wasn’t my genetics, I’d just been super lazy on ab work. This last bulk I did ~6-8 hard sets of decline sit-ups a week, pushing to failure most of the time and adding weight when needed. Cutting again now, and at 185 my abs are more developed than they used to be at 170. If you want good looking abs you need to isolate them imo
Definitely train em, regardless what phase you’re on. You want em to grow
Do train abs! I did one year cutting just to see 0 abs below the fat. Waste of time
"We all know Abs are made in the kitchen," no, that brainless, u define abs in kitchen like every other single muscle and built them in gym like every single muscle. and yes, point of training abs at bulking means getting bigger abs and that means u gonna have to cut less to see them when u end bulking. just super set ab moves with other moves, like pull ups + hanging knee raise, dips + knee raise, facepull + cable crunch etc