zibafu
Well-known member
Well, there is a big myth about the abdominal wall that you can exercise specific parts of it, like upper and lower abs for example, so for example:
"crunches do upper abs"
"leg raises do lower abs"
No they don't, the ab wall is one muscle, it all contracts no matter what
That said, there is connective tissues/tiny muscles all over the show that also needs to be strengthened to help support the major muscles, so doing a variety of different exercises can definitely help there.
But no matter what, if you're doing 8 different ab exercises, then you're doing 8 exercises that concentrate on the abs, but will also do a little to help the connective tissues surrounding them.
So, its probably better to focus on one of those exercises daily, to give the supporting muscles a great workout as well.
As for enough reps. Best way to think of it is in terms of the percentage of gains you get per increase in rep amount, so hypothetically:
- Week 1 you do 10 reps of an exercise daily
- Week 2 you do 20 reps
- Week 3 you do 30
- week 4 you do 40
And so on, right away from week 1 to 2, is a 100% increase, but week 2 - 3 is only a 50% increase, week 3-4 is ... 33% ? increase, so at what point does it become worthless to continuously add reps. Obviously no-one adds 10 reps per week to an exercise generally, but this is for easy math sake But if you're doing 100 situps a day, who cares about adding 10 more ?
Honestly tho, one of the best exercises in general for abdominals is to get an ab wheel and learn to do it from a standing position, its such a useful piece of equipment to have and an amazing exercise, but extremely difficult
"crunches do upper abs"
"leg raises do lower abs"
No they don't, the ab wall is one muscle, it all contracts no matter what
That said, there is connective tissues/tiny muscles all over the show that also needs to be strengthened to help support the major muscles, so doing a variety of different exercises can definitely help there.But no matter what, if you're doing 8 different ab exercises, then you're doing 8 exercises that concentrate on the abs, but will also do a little to help the connective tissues surrounding them.
So, its probably better to focus on one of those exercises daily, to give the supporting muscles a great workout as well.
As for enough reps. Best way to think of it is in terms of the percentage of gains you get per increase in rep amount, so hypothetically:
- Week 1 you do 10 reps of an exercise daily
- Week 2 you do 20 reps
- Week 3 you do 30
- week 4 you do 40
And so on, right away from week 1 to 2, is a 100% increase, but week 2 - 3 is only a 50% increase, week 3-4 is ... 33% ? increase, so at what point does it become worthless to continuously add reps. Obviously no-one adds 10 reps per week to an exercise generally, but this is for easy math sake
But if you're doing 100 situps a day, who cares about adding 10 more ?Honestly tho, one of the best exercises in general for abdominals is to get an ab wheel and learn to do it from a standing position, its such a useful piece of equipment to have and an amazing exercise, but extremely difficult
