Best Way To Develop Abs?

[brandon69]

What is the best way to develop my abs, so that they show without having to flex and make them rock hard, and how do i do this with a minimal loss of weight, how much should i do this and how many and what exercises are good to do to acheive this?

[bodyshop20]

Sorry mate, But the only way to get abs out is cut fat back as much as poss im affraid.
The 1st place fat will go is mid drift so it is the last place it will go from.
But as far as exercises go, i do crunches, legs raises, Roman chair and good old sit up. Good luck Mr

[darkangel1]

ya he is right you first have to lose your fat off your gut to get great abs the best way to lose fat i think is running and then you can do crunchs and another good exersise is the ab roller.

[Klide]

IMOP...work out your abs every other day. Make sure you hit your abs from different angles (there are many different types of crunches...regular, oblique...reverse etc). I do 200 every other day and that works for me...listen to your body and see what works for you.

NOW...the best way to see those rippled abs from all that hard work you're gonna do...cardio and diet diet diet!

[Gohan]

here's my ab workout i do once a week

Decline sit-ups with olympic weights on chest 4-5 sets (at 40lbs for 20 reps)

Olympic BB side bends 4 sets (at 75lbs for 8 reps)

Decline leg raises 4 sets (at 12 reps)

[APEX]

It's all about diet!

Although not a big fan of the Phillips brothers, I really like Shawn Phillips ab book called ABSolution. He addresses diet, training, and supplementation... but he goes in depth on proper ab training. Here's the site:
www.BESTABS.com

[MostMuscle]

Two words...diet & cardio

[Tear]

Is the Roman chair the same as teh knee hold, in a sitting position against the wall?

[scv2004]

I do bicycle situps

[TsiTalon]

dont use weights on abs , your just wasting your time.

[Tear]

Originally Posted by TsiTalon

dont use weights on abs , your just wasting your time.

You're so sure about that?

[TsiTalon]

just think about it. Why do you use heavy weight on any other body part ? To make it bigger . You dont want your abs to be bigger just cut. Combine that with diet and your set.

[NateDogg]

Originally Posted by TsiTalon

just think about it. Why do you use heavy weight on any other body part ? To make it bigger . You dont want your abs to be bigger just cut. Combine that with diet and your set.

[rant]

Jesus, will you please stop telling people to not use weights on their abs? Please! If you want weak abs that look cut, don't work them at all. However, you'd better not deadlift, squat, do any low back work, etc, because your abs are going to be weak and you are going to hurt yourself. Or, you could start off with low weight on squats and deads and...you will be working your abs with weights!!!!

You sir, are wasting your time if you are working your abs without weights. You are not providing progressive resistance, therefore, you are not making them stronger (through a reasonable rep range, I'll give you that if you can do 50 crunches when before you could only do 40 that your abs have more endurance) nor are you making them more cut, because we all know that definition is a function of body fat, not doing 10 million useless crunches.

[/rant]

[cursor]

If doing crunches (or ANY exercise) with your body weight doesn't present a serious challenge to the targeted muscles, then you MUST use additional weight (or some method of providing additional resistance) if you want any development.

On what grounds can you advise, "dont use weights on abs, your just wasting your time," TsiTalon?

[TsiTalon]

Ok here i go . Im not just saying these things. I have an updated edition of The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding. Here are some quotes on the topic.

"...you never see bodybuilders using weights to train their abs or their obliques. But the fact that you put so much stress on hte muscles of the waist whenever you train heavy means that no bodybuilder- even the smaller ones- need to train abs using any kind of exta resistance."

"...a lot of bodybuilders did a lot of ab exercies, some of them using substantial amounts of weight. You rarely see successful bodybuilders doing those exercises today because the obs, like any other muscle, get bigger when you train them with weight, and massive obs tend to make the waist thicker and takes away from the aesthetics of an outstanding V taper."

" So bodybuilders who train obs at all tend to stick to nonresistance movements, such as Twists or Side Bends, using no weight, which tightens the muscles without causing them to become too big.

ok ik not typing anymore haha. Yeah this is what i read and to me it maked sence if you think about it. The ONLY reason i would use weights is if i was having problems with squats or whatever but everyone works their abs everyday doing normal daily things so i cant see your abs being that weak. Well i hope i answered the question and i do understand that some people are different but i wanted to share this cause if you get someone to use heavy weights on there obs, ab and get big ugly midsection its gonna be hard to get rid of that muscle and cut through it. Just my pennies guys.