Everything you wanted to know about six pack abs, but where afraid to ask.

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The average guy in the gym puts about as much thought into his ab training as he puts into tying his shoes. In other words, he throws in a few sets of crunches at the end of his workout a couple of times a week and thinks no more about it. It's time we change that. Here are a few questions you should be asking yourself about abdominal training. After we explore these questions, I'll show you how to do a few of the best ab exercises I know, some of which you've probably never heard of before!

Why do abdominal training?

There are a number of reasons why you should be doing abdominal exercises. They include:

Visual Impact - 6/8 pack look - Most people who are strength training are pursuing this goal. I'll leave out the 'spot reducing' debate, assuming that it's been kicked to death, any say that there's potential for improved visual impact if abs are kept in a shortened state through strength training.

Transfer to Sport - The contribution of ab training to sports performance has received no shortage of press, but suggest that many principles are misguided. For one, the statement that "a strong midsection is needed to transfer the force from the lower body to the upper body" is nice, but perhaps unsubstantiated.

Injury Prevention - This isn't a new concept. For example, Charles Mac Mahon was writing about the value of strong abdominals in injury prevention in 1931. The exact role of the abs and other trunk stabilizers has received appropriate attention in therapy and injury prevention studies. this information has yet to fully filter down, however, based on the incidence of injuries that can be attributed to inappropriately prepared abdominal and trunk stabilizer muscles.

A place to store coins - Personally I don't like carrying a change purse, so I find it much more convenient to store them in the deep furrows between my abs!

How often should I train my abs?

Rather than getting caught up in a discussion about as to whether abdominal muscles are phasic (power producing) or tonic (stabilizer contributing), I'm going to simply stress the inverse relationship between volume and intensity. In other words, your abs need to recover too! If your primary concern is injury prevention, I lean towards a more frequent lower load, (i.e., volume and intensity) exposures. For example a total of 2 to 4 sets done 5 or 6 times a week. If your primary concern is performance specific power production, a higher load, less frequent exposure may be more effective, say on the order of 2 to 3 days per week. If your focus is injury prevention and visual contribution, a medium load and frequency may be effective, e.g.., 3 to 4 days a week.

How many sets should I do?

If your primary concern is power production, a volume of say, 6 to 10 sets per session may be effective. If your focus is injury prevention and visual contribution, an intermediate volume of 3 to 6 sets per session may be more effective.

How hard and how heavy do I need to train?

We can treat the abs much like any other muscles. Going closer to muscle fatigue and failure will increase the fatigue curve. Only do this if you don't plan on training the abdominal muscle group for another 2 or 3 days.  

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