Decline crunches and hanging straight leg raises.
Do heavy basic exercises and eat a clean diet. You can do some direct ab work if you think you need it, but stick to the basics and keep your bodyfat levels low and you’ll have pretty nice abs.
hanging pikes and sit ups work for me, also pulls and chins work the abs very well if you keep your feet well out in front of you
for looking good nekid - train abs only once per week, 5 sets, no direct obliques training
olympic lifting works abs as a whole!
heavy compound and dynamic exercises for athletic core development.
Rob Gray
Serious abs are built when they are used in their natural function… stabilization. My rectus abdominus and obliques are outlined even at 15% BF when flexed. Very little direct ab work.
lose the fat, and ab pulldowns.
Sicilian Crunches, and gravity boot crunches (think Batman)
Assuming the diet is in order, there’s no reason to be satisfied with a six pack. To make all eight pop, snaked with vascularity (ok, that’s diet too) work abs directly twice a week, as suggested by Waterbury and the Westside guys, in addition to all the indirect work you get from heavy compound movements. One session is with heavy weights and lower reps, the other is a bodyweight exercise with higher reps. This is truly all you need.
If you can really, and I mean really, get all five sets of ten reps in the hanging pike (bodyweight exercise), you probably have a mean eight pack already (again, assuming the diet’s in order). I know very few people that can do this, because it’s f’ing hard. Decline sit-ups with a heavy plate or dumbbell on the chest for ten sets of three, going as heavy as you can. Rope crunches on the pulldown machine for ten to fifteen reps will kill your upper abs and serratus. Those three exercises are all you need, and as long as you’re improving on your numbers, your abs will get steadily better.
Good form is important, but going super-slow to feel the burn isn’t recommended. If you do any other exercises super slow already, because of injuries, then perhaps it’s for you, but I don’t squat, bench, or deadlift slowly… why would I want to work my abs that way?
As mentioned before, the only way you’re going to see everything (separation between abs, serratus, obliques, and intercostals) is by keeping bodyfat down. Only other tips I can offer are to get a little sun, keep sodium intake in check, and eradicating the hirsute factor does wonders for showing off the stomach.
Good luck.
Hey, I have one that hasn’t been mentioned (I think). Though I am not actually sure of what it is called. I learned this one in a MA class.
Lying on the floor, place your hands under your lower back and raise your head and feet (at the same time) six inches off the floor. Hold for as long as you possibly can. If you don’t feel anything, put some plates on your shins. (makes it really evil)
(does anyone know the name of this?)
When doing crucnhes, concentrate on your abdominals doing the work and not your head or neck. I learned this the hard way and didn’t have a full range of motion with my neck for about a month.
Treat your Abs like every other muscle in your body, use weighted exercise and leave the high reps for the spandex brigade! BIG AND CUT ABS RULE!
I like to circuit-train abs…doing 3-4 exercises in a row with little to no rest in between. It is important to use moderate to heavy resistance so that the rep range is between 8-12…doing anymore than that means the resistance is not heavy enough. I train abs directly once a week as they get a lot of work during other excersises (deadlifts, squats, etc.)
My favorite ab exercise is decline situps. I like to try and keep my abs tight through the whole movement. Add in some weight to really bullett proof your mid section
Standing Ab work using the lat pulldown machine for heavy weight and low reps.
I hit the abs from different angles each training day. I try to do some kind of leg raise or reverse sit up on Monday, regular situps on Wednesday, and then something for the obliques on Friday. In addition to that I like to alternate weeks between speed ab work and heavy ab work. Thanks for listening.
Echoing what most people have said, Oly lifts with some direct work once a week if needed. If direct work is your wish, then switch up the angles but never go above 15 reps.
Folks, with respect, a lot of these are already in past issues of T-Mag, and I daresay, a few folks may just be reproducing here what they read in there… well like them, I’m not above pimping myself for Hot Roxx… so here’s my take on things:
Training the outer abs like the upper RAs and obliques is easily done in general, as most people find little problem in training these muscles, however, for a narrow waist (for you bodybuilding types) and good back health (for you strength athletes) training the transverse abdominals or TVAs are a must, and are often neglected. The basics of direct TVA work are covered in The lost Secret of Ab Training by Don Alsessi. My contribuition follows on from his article…
Since the TVAs are predominantly slow-twich muscle, they respond to very long reps. Hence, once one is able to recruit the muscle adequately well standing up, one may choose to adopt a “vacuum pose” when performing excersises such as lateral raises, reverse curls, etc, holding a contraction through the entire set. (Obviously, this is impossible when one is training very heavy… but nevertheless useful for finishing sets or GVT).
A more advanced technique is, before going to work/school/etc, to take some thin but strong embroidery thread or fishing line, and tie it around your waist slightly tighter than your “comfortable waist-size”, so a 28" waist would tie a loop 26"-27" in circumference. I must emphasise slight because if it’s too tight you’ll get sick of it and take it off by about 10AM, and thin thread, because anything thick gets used for support and doesn’t hurt enough to keep you honest. Then, using a couple of small pieces of surgical tape, tape it to your skin at a few places around your waist level with your navel, so it doesn’t ride up and down. Keep it on all day. Yep, you heard me, ALL DAY LONG.
With this method, you are forcing your TVA to work for long periods of time, training to which it responds well. This will, in a matter of days, reduce your waist size, simply by changing your posture, and with more regular use, results become permanent. Note, though, that it is inadvisable to do this before a set of heavy squats, dead-lifts, or any other excersise that requires optimum TVA stability… I usuallly take at least 12 hours off from the thing before such a work-out. If I bother to put it on in the first place.
To make it harder, and to satisfy your masochistic streak, stick a tennis ball to the back of your chair at work (if you work a desk-job), forcing you not to use the backrest, and sit bolt-upright. It’s not easy, and not reccommended for long periods… but try falling asleep this way.
I recommend training abs with the exercises from CT’s Ab Training for Atheltes and Babehounds.
your abs are used in many many movements not just flexion, so make sure to do exercises that take the abs through other movement pattens.