Abs - Why Do Isolation Exercises?

Training Bodybuilding
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[quote]duffyj2 wrote:

  1. If you get sufficient stimulation from squats and deadlifts then your abs are your weak point and need to be isolated.
    If you don’t then your abs aren’t getting suffcient stimulation and need to be isolated.

  2. Abs can and should be trained every day (see Zatiorsky), are you realistically going to train your abs every day with sets of heavy squats? No.

  3. Most powerlifters isolate their abs. This should tell you something.

  4. I really hate threads that start like this “I really want to start some civilised discussion on (insert topic here). I personally feel people that do (blank) are incestuous/gimps/take it up the ass. Furthermore, (personal trainer/bosu ball/bodyblade joke here).”[/quote]

  5. You do not have to go to complete failure in order to stimulate a muscle to grow. If this were the case then each muscle in a compound movement would have to fail at the same time in order to grow. Does this happen?

  6. Maybe this is just me, I don’t know, but my Abs used to be so easy to train and make them show. Before I got into BBing, I used to do 15 sit ups every night and by the 3rd/4th day my Abs were at their peak. Why train them every day when they show through just as good when they get indirect stimulus 3x per week?

  7. Do they? I never knew this, do you have any proof? Not being funny or anything, it’s just that I mentioned a bit back that as far as I knew, powerlifters didn’t isolate their Abs, I would like to be shown otherwise…

  8. As for your 4th point, I’m sorry if I irritated you.

As I said though, what I’ve experienced may just be particular to myself. However, I do find it difficult to beleive that Abs are that diverse (apart from shape) that they need completely different training to make them grow.

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  1. Is it necessary? No. Is it optimal? Yes. The more motor units you fatigue the more hypertrophy you experience. With compound movements you obviously have to balance this fact with fatigue incurred from an exercise… since this isn’t the case here, moot point.

  2. I’ll stick with Zatiorsky on this one.

  3. Yep, you’d be surprised. Just look up Westside Barbell and have a gander over the type of ab work those guys do.

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More specifically,
http://www.westside-barbell.com/Articles%20Top%20Ten/PDF.Files/02PDF/Back%20and%20AB%20Training.pdf

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Most PLers train their abs a lot, doing weighted stuff for strength.

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I stand corrected on the powerlifting issue (whether they isolate their Abs). Makes me wonder though, how many powerlifters actually follow through on this advice. The ones I’ve known will always frown upon isolation exercises as if they’re only for woman lol.

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[quote]duffyj2 wrote:
More specifically,
http://www.westside-barbell.com/Articles%20Top%20Ten/PDF.Files/02PDF/Back%20and%20AB%20Training.pdf

[/quote]

Interesting artical! I thought it was quite unique how they recomend Squating and Deadlifting in the same workout. I was debating with myself as to whether to carry this on (I’ve been squating and deadlifting on a Monday) because the first exercise (squat/deadlift) totally exhausted me. I was going to do Squat on Mondays and Deadlift on Thursdays (my two lower body training days), but I’ll just see how it goes.

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maybe its because theyre training in lower reps/higher rest for them. i dont think you could do a couple squats in the 20 rep range then go bang out some deadlifts.

i couldnt even do deadlifts and bench in the same day. but i train for size so its probaly not a good idea to do that anyway.