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It depends on your goals and needs. Strong abdominals are still important for most athletic endeavors and are part of your overall foundation for strength.
Originally posted by FishrCutB8: It depends on your goals and needs. Strong abdominals are still important for most athletic endeavors and are part of your overall foundation for strength.
right, which leads to my question...When doing compound type workouts, is direct Ab work needed? Forget goals and needs, I just want to know if I am making a mistake by not including them in my workout and sticking to the main compound lifts.
There are still many programs I've seen most of the ones I've done which still include some direct ab and/or work. Most of those programs ARE sports/performance oriented. However, it's not very much; ususally 2-3 sets, and lower reps, 8-12, and sometimes explosively. I myself have found that while recently using more compound, oly and overhead lifts, my middle seems to get a pretty good amount of work.
I used to do a lot of ab work. It worked. Then for a LONG time I stopped. Nothing but compound exercises (deads and squats) that hit them indirectly.
So then I went back to trying ab work, and I actually STARTED with weighted crunches, standing ab rollouts and multiple-rep leg raises... without difficulty.
Now, as for how much MORE development I might have gotten if I had been doing them all the way through, I don't know. But I definitely did fine without.
Thanks Guys. I assume we do these to increase Ab mass, and whats funny is I always see direct Ab work showing 8-15 reps, and know that most gains are from Heavy loads and low reps, so that got me thinking..."what is the point".
Arent you doing a Smolov cycle? If so, I wouldnt do abs after all of that.
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Originally posted by GqArtguy: Arent you doing a Smolov cycle? If so, I wouldnt do abs after all of that.
Yes, I am 4 days away from completing Smolov. It was a question more for my cutting stage which I will start in Feb. Looking to change things up a bit and Ab's came to mind as I hope to uncover them.
Again, Thanks Everyone for the input. This place is priceless.
Location: Philly on one side, Pittsburgh on another, the Green Between...
Posts: 5,857
If you're looking to uncover your abs, direct ab work will probably not do the trick (no spot reduction, but you probably know that). The other things you do (compounds, HIIT, etc.) will reduce your body fat, making them more visible as it wears away that layer of fat. The work you do will build the size of the abs, and that's what makes them "pop"....
Ian King has you doing a lot of ab work in BOM. I thought it was a waste of time. Abs seem to be treated like they're some "other" kind of muscle. I don't get. Once a week with some kinda weight to get 8-10 reps should be plenty.
On another note, try doing suitcase deadlifts and see if anything hurts afterwards.
jc
I think ab work is necessary at least some of the time, especially if strength is the goal. Guys like Dave Tate and Louie Simmons are big on weighted ab work. Keeping the abs really strong will do a lot in helping to brace the midsection and keep you stable during squats and deadlifts. This will help keep you healthy and make you stronger.
Danny
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Yeah what D said...
I personally think exclusively weighted ab exercises will benefit you the most. Like I am starting to leave 50-100 rep sets of crunches behind and moving over to weighted leg raises and ab cable pull-downs. Kind of a question of abdominal strength, want to do a million reps and gain endurance strength or go weighted and get more limit strength? What's weird is I never thought about my abdominals hypertrophying before but now that I look at it that way it makes sense Fish.
Here's a question, do the compound movements such as deadlifts and squats work your abs just as much as your lower back, or could doing these among others actually lead to an imbalance between your lower back and abs?
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Wouldn't combining some weighted work on low reps with a couple of one-million rep crunch sets do the trick?
For some people ab endurance is move important than the limit strength, but on the other hand everyone wants them to "pop" like Fishr said, and that comes strictly from weighted work..... right?
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Weight: 155lbs
Age: 18
Height: 5'9
Bodyfat: ~12%
Max squat: ?
Max deadlift: 225x5
Max bench: 115x5
Simon - You would be better off combining the weighted ab work with things like planks for endurance as well as unbelted squats and deadlifts. The type of endurance you need with the abs isn't the ability to do millions of crunches, its the ability to stabalize and brace the midsection (unless you have to do a certain amount of crunches for the military or something).
Danny
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Limitations are for people who have them.
Well it's for school actually, and the weird thing is last year (when i wasn't even weight training) I could do about 75 of 'em in a minute which was great, and then we had another test a few days ago and I barely squeezed out 50 :/
Also I'm really worried about hurting my back doing squats so I don't want to do them without the belt
Regardless of that wouldn't this combination give you all the stabilizing strength you need?
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Weight: 155lbs
Age: 18
Height: 5'9
Bodyfat: ~12%
Max squat: ?
Max deadlift: 225x5
Max bench: 115x5
I've heard doing squats without a belt will strengthen your back, as well as your abs and other core muscles, whereas doing them with a belt will lead to overloading and potential back injury. Is this wrong? I've never used a belt for squats.
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Originally posted by jcwiseesq: Ian King has you doing a lot of ab work in BOM. I thought it was a waste of time. Abs seem to be treated like they're some "other" kind of muscle. I don't get. Once a week with some kinda weight to get 8-10 reps should be plenty.
Danny King (no relation ) just answered this:
Quote:
Keeping the abs really strong will do a lot in helping to brace the midsection and keep you stable during squats and deadlifts. This will help keep you healthy and make you stronger.
King/Lou state as much in the book (did you read the rest of it?) and Ian King has culled his programs from over a quarter century of training people. FWIW.
Originally posted by Simon Glumcher: The belt keeps you from bending your back too much, which is what usually causes back damage.. [img]redface.gif[/img]
This isn't true. The point of a belt is to have something to push your abs against to create more interabdominal pressure. That will keep you tighter and more stable. The goal of a belt isn't really injury prevention as much as moving more weight. I rarely use a belt and when I do its only on sets around 90% or higher.
Danny
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Limitations are for people who have them.
Weightlifting belts do little to improve performance, concluded researchers at the Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y., after comparing the progress of 50 weightlifters, half of whom wore weightlifting belts.
All the men followed the same program, and their results were essentially the same. But there was an important difference: The men who did not use the weightlifting belt had better abdominal and back strength.
These results echo a previous study that found little to support the use of these belts.
While an individual may be able to lift about 20 percent more weight when they wear a back belt, this does not translate to 20 percent more protection for the spine.
Furthermore, other studies have found that the constant use of back belts leads to reliance as torso and back muscles begin to atrophy over time.
85% of your max - what?
I always figured it helps you keep your form..
If I'm working in the 8-10 rep range and the last sets are EXTREMELY hard for me, almost hard enough to cheat (and hurt myself in the proccess(?)) wouldn't a back belt keep me from doing an incorrect movement in the last nearly impossible rep?
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Weight: 155lbs
Age: 18
Height: 5'9
Bodyfat: ~12%
Max squat: ?
Max deadlift: 225x5
Max bench: 115x5
Originally posted by Simon Glumcher: 85% of your max - what?
I always figured it helps you keep your form..
If I'm working in the 8-10 rep range and the last sets are EXTREMELY hard for me, almost hard enough to cheat (and hurt myself in the proccess(?)) wouldn't a back belt keep me from doing an incorrect movement in the last nearly impossible rep?
Yeah, 85% of my max or higher.
The belt isn't used to keep form, in fact, it can do the opposite. Sounds like you are using too much weight. You should never reach the point where the belt is preventing you from injury because of the weight requirement. And usually when working in the 8-10 rep range you wouldn't want to go to failure like that. My belt is for heavy lifting (85% or higher), low reps (1-3) and when my upper body in unsupported.
:p 
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