From: mcyze@uwovax.uwo.ca
Newsgroups: misc.fitness
Subject: Re: Abdominal Workouts
Date: 15 Apr 92 11:38:48 EST

>In article <wood.703215522@kong> wood@kong.siemens.com (Jim Wood) writes:

>** apr92_20@doe.carleton.ca (Anand Raju (Temporary Account 97.589)) writes:
>** 
>** >A friend lent me a booklet called "Legendary Abs"
>** >...
>** >Would I get results faster if I increase it to every day?  I can
>** >see why working out other day is preferred if you want to increase
>** >muscle mass, but these exercises are to tone rather than build.
>** 
>** I do abdominals 5-6 days per week religiously, and my goal is to
>** *tone* rather than to build mass.  For toning there should be no
>** restriction to every other day, unless you just plain don't want to
>** do it!

>  Here I go up on my soapbox again.

>  I think that what most people call "toning" is just a combination of
>bodyfat reduction and moderate muscle growth, that is, they want some
>definition in their body. It seems that many people think that this
>combination of goals requires a different basic training paradigm than
>"ordinary" weight training or fat reduction techniques. This often
>leads them to everyday workouts and/or spot reduction attempts.

>  What people don't seem to realize is that this combination of
>bodyfat reduction and muscle growth is pretty much exactly what
>bodybuilders aim for and they have developed some fairly effective
>basic guidelines for achieving them. Two of them which seem to be
>consistantly violated by the "toners" are to give bodyparts at least
>two days of rest (i.e. don't work them every day) between workouts and
>to do multiple sets of roughly 6 - 15 repetitions per set.


I've been natural bodybuilding for a little over four 
years.  For the first three years, I worked my abs a maximum of three 
times a week.  This produced a bit of development, but certainly no washboard
(fat wasn't the culprit - I was measured (immersion technique) to have
a total body fat of 6%).  I asked my friend, who has a perfect washboard
stomach, what excercises he did.  He told me he worked his abs six times
a week, and essentially only did 1/4 sit-ups.  So... I tried working
my abs more often (4-5 times a week).  It worked!  Within two months I
noticed a great increase in definition and strength.


Here's my routine:

10x Hanging leg raises
5x  Hanging knee-ups
  15 second rest
10x Hanging leg raises
5x  Hanging knee-ups
35x Lying 6" leg raises
  15 second rest
25x Lying 6" leg raises
40x 1/4 sit-ups
  10 second rest
25x 1/4 sit-ups
20x crunches
  rest a bit, then do a few more crunches until you can't do any more

I work out two days on, one day off - so I end up working my abs 
every workout, a total of 5 days a week.  This seems to be a nice 
middleground between how often I'm 'supposed' to work abs, 
and the possibly excessive 'every day' approach.

According to science, I am overtraining.  According to my results,
however, I am not overtraining.  

Of course, as with all bodybuilding, what works for me might
not work for anybody else.


Mike.




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Mike Cyze                          |    
Department of Geophysics,          |   The future is wavelets...
The University of Western Ontario  |     
London, Ontario, N6A 5B7, Canada   |  
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phone:    Dept. Office, (519) 661 3141
Fax:                    (519) 661 3837
Internet: mcyze@uwovax.uwo.ca OR mcyze@hydra.uwo.ca OR mcyze@uwo.ca
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