Working abs every day

[Ell]

If you've been doing 60 crunches 5 days a week for 5 months your abdominals will have adapted to doing that load. You need to increase the amount you're doing so your abdominal muscles keep adapting and getting stronger. I do crunches everyday, usually between 300-500, I use to get saw the day after my crunches so I would rest and take a day off. These days I don't get as saw so I do them pretty much everyday, usually laying off just once a week to make sure I don't get accumalative fatigue. I swear by crunches over situps, you feel the burn more with crunches and they don't cause damage to your lower back. It's just hard to learn how to do a proper crunch, many people think a crunch is just going halfway up to do a situp but it's not. I would suggest going on an ab cradle to get used to the correct form of a proper crunch and how they should feel. It took me a while to get used to doing proper crunches but once you get doing them you feel the benefits. If your abs are saw or hurt the day after then rest them for a day.

[sukhenkoy]

Really? I can do crunches all day long, but full sit-ups kill me around the 100 mark.

Yeah man. I don't really feel it in my abs when I'm doing full sit-ups by the 120 mark (more in my legs than anything), but crunches I start to feel by around 70-80. To each his own body I suppose.

[Count Patron]

situps are horrible for your back..

theres a buttload of core exercises to choose from that dont involve the crunching motion

Sit-ups help build your lower back.

[SugarShanep4p]

yeah mabye thats a good idea then, ill do my roadwork everyday and then do the situps and the roadwork only 3 days a week......and im from cold spring harbor, LI

[TexasTitan]

Key to recovery is nutrition. Eat lots of lean proteins and a balanced diet for that matter.

[Count Patron]

yeah mabye thats a good idea then, ill do my roadwork everyday and then do the situps and the roadwork only 3 days a week......and im from cold spring harbor, LI

Name of the chick in your signature? I would very much like to fap to her.

[SugarShanep4p]

hahaha I have no idea what her name is, I found the photo awile back and iv had it ever since....you can try searching italian girls on google images or something lol

[Salty]

You can work your abs every day, but vary the exercises as like with any muscle they become accustumed to the cunches and situps. Mix things up and shock them.

Abs are mainly slow twitch muscle fibres due to their nature of being stabiliser muscles to maintain posture (forgotten their classification). So work tthem every day as long as they aren't sore and vary it up and you will notice much better improvements.

[Ell]

Sit-ups don't much or anything at all for your back, they put a lot of stress on your lower back and your spine. You can minimise stress with sit-ups by doing them on a soft/cushioned surface but I would still recommend crunches over sit-ups every day of the week. For doing you lower back do back hyperextensions or the rowing machine. I've done sit-ups in the past and crunches and I've found crunches to be far more effective, it's just learning the correct form.

[Rob Pilger]

Sit ups are the worst ab exercise to do. Becuase of the amount of pressure elicited on the lumbar spine ( low back ) Dr. Stuart McGill who is the worlds TOP expert on back pain and performance has written about this in his great book Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance.

Understand that the abdominals are made mostly of phasic fast twitch muscle fibers so they need rest like your legs and back etc. What would happen if you squatted with resistance everyday? To work the abs like they are meant to be worked you MUST use resistance and when you do this you must rest OR perform lower abbs Day 1, Day 2 Rotational, oblique work, then repeat. Still you can over train them by working then 4 or more times a week.

For elite performance you're FAR better off performing rotational core work, ( boxing is a rotation sport ) in standing, wood chops for example than doing excessive floor ab exercises like crunches, Reverse crunches are great though and an exception for improving performance and posture.

Everyone is different, listen to your body, you can't train everyone like a herd of cattle or train like everyone else in the herd, I mean individualize your training to what you can recover from and needs.

Perform more rotation and reverse crunch work.

Rob Pilger
http://www.boxingperformance.com
http://www.theultimateboxingworkout.com/fighters.html