If I told that you could, why would you want to? The real question is: Why would anyone be interested in working any one muscle group every day? I’ve never been asked if you can work hamstrings every day.
Why the interest in daily abdominal training? Easy. Because every one wants “six pack abs.”
Despite the reality that it’s impossible, there persists the belief that your abs will look cover model ripped simply by doing a lot of ab work.
Due to their need to function as stabilizers all day long, the abdominals have a network of veins and capillaries that are denser than in many other muscle groups. This gives them a greater capacity for recovery. Depending on your current fitness level and the intensity of the abdominal training, you could train abs every day.
But we’re back to the critical question underlying the daily abs dilemma.
Why would you want to? Most people are already fighting just to maintain the space in their schedule for regular exercise. Why would you want to spend time training any muscle group every day if you didn’t have to?
Unhappy with the way your abs look? You have two options.
1. You can follow a comprehensive program of consistently challenging, total-body resistance training, greatly reduce intake of sugars and saturated fats while consuming lean proteins, and include progressively challenging cardiovascular training. Or…
2. You could just do a whole lot of crunches.
The difference: The first one is more challenging and it works. The second one is relatively easy and it doesn’t work.
Everyone Has Abdominals
Yes, YOU have abdominals. If you work your abs three times a day, once a week…or never, you still have abdominal muscles. Then what’s keeping the abs hidden? Your body is built in layers. The outermost is the skin, then fat, then muscle. If the fat layer is too large, it will hide the abdominals.
Strengthening and developing the abdominals without attention paid to a comprehensive program of exercise and sound nutrition is going to result in strong, well-developed abs that are well-covered by body fat.
Abdominals can be trained to great effect by treating them much like any other muscle group – by training them only a few times per week.
Abdominal Cardio!?
How many reps should you do for abs? Another source of confusion.
We all know someone who boasts of being able to do 200 (or more) crunches. The next time you see them, congratulate them! They have discovered how to do cardio with their abdominal muscles! They aren’t going to get better abs this way, but they will get a highly developed sense of boredom.
In order to develop muscles, they must be challenged in a relatively short period of time. In much the same way that running does not build leg muscles, a 5 minute set of abs doesn’t build abdominal muscles.
As a general guideline, if you are able to perform 20 reps of any abdominal exercise, it is time for a new challenge. Either make the existing movement more challenging or pick a different exercise.
Remember, what it takes to change the appearance of ANY body part is the same.
o Regular, progressively challenging resistance training for all major muscle groups
o Regular, progressively challenging cardiovascular training
o Nutrition that supports fat loss and healthy function
If you are not seeing the results you want in your abs, look to your overall program design and to your nutrition plan, not to doing more abdominal work.
Jonathan Ross is Co-Author of the forthcoming Family Fit Plan (http://www.familyfitplan.com) and Owner of Washington D.C.-based Aion Fitness. He publishes an insightful, fun-to-read fitness and nutrition e-newsletter that accepts free subscriptions through http://www.AionFitness.com. Jonathan leverages his personal experiences with obesity to fuel his passion for enhancing lives through physical activity – namely that related to his parents who, together, weighed 800 pounds, ultimately resulting in the loss of his father to obesity-related disease. Jonathan was named as the 2005 ACE Personal Trainer of the Year 1st Runner-Up,and earned the distinction of being named among Mens Journal Magazines “Top 100 Trainers in the Country”. He is a sought after expert source who has provided his insight and perspective to top-tier publications, including Womens Health and Fitness, Better Homes & Gardens, Fitness, The Washington Post, and Cooking Light.
