[quote]Nicholas F wrote:
Well yes and no. But your comparision of abs and legs is a wrong one. [/quote]
no it isn’t. muscles will become bigger through progression. it does not matter what muscles we are comparing. progression comes in many forms. more reps, more sets, better technique, more weight, more often per week, shorter rest times, etc.
like any other muscle, abs will look better when they can do more. your legs will look different when you can squat 495 pounds as opposed to 135 pounds. to be fair, i’m sure quaite a few parts of a trainee’s body will look better when squatting that weight <lower back, abs, overall body weight, etc>.
but if you really want a barometer for abdominal development rather than just looking in the mirror and subjectively guessing if they look better, measure their strength by doing abdominal-dominant exercises. can you do more crunches than last month? more hanging tuck or pikes than a few months ago? that’s how you’ll test your abdominal progression.
I would compare abs to biceps. You can get amazing bi’s without doing any direct work, and in fact, you will probably see better results from never doing any direct bi work. Of course its because your bi’s are getting blasted by doing heavy compound movements like rows, pullups, hell, even deads.
actually, i don’t think i’ve ever seen anyone with ‘amazing’ biceps that doesn’t do some direct work for biceps, as well. and where are you coming from with someone getting better results without any direct bicep work? it’s clear that you do not have much experience in the gym and you’re sounding a lot like those anti-isolation fanboys that are all too common in these forums.
all things being equal between two trainees, the one who adds direct abdominal and bicep work into his/her routine <while maintaining a smart program and balance of total work volume on his/her body respective of his/her current conditioning> will have better abs and biceps than his/her counterpart who is NOT doing direct abdominal and bicep work.
and let me tell you this, if your biceps feel ‘blasted’ after doing deadlifts and chin-ups, that just shows how out-of-condition your biceps are. of course biceps do get stimulation during upper body pulls which involve forearm flexion <rows, pull-ups, etc>, but for any trainee with at least a few years of training experience <SMART training experience, i should say> under his belt, he can add some direct bicep work and accelerate his progression in biceps development.
Your abs are the same way as the bi’s. They get slammed every time you do a heavy compound movement. Cleans hit the abs. So do pullups. So do squats. hell, pretty much any heavy duty olympic lift punishes your abs. Thats why I, like alot of people who lift heavy compound movements, don’t directly do much ab work just like we don’t do much bi work.
look, 99% of my routine is compound movements. but my abdominals hardly get ‘slammed’ when i do heavy front squats or weighted chins or whatever. of course they are activated, but it is not significant activation. it is hardly ‘punishment’.
let’s look at heavy bench, for example. when you do heavy bench <and if you do it my way, semi-powerlifting style> you get big activation in the pecs, tris, delts, and to a lesser degree lats, abs, forearms and quads. but what really grows from this movement? the first three muscles i mentioned.
I havent done a situp in forever, but I could probably crank the hell out of whatever ab exercise I wanted to because they are strong from doing other stuff. Just like bi’s. Show me a big guy who can pull a ton of weight, yet hardly does a curl, yet if wanted, he could curl a ton.
i’m pretty sure you couldn’t hang in with anyone who does a lot of ab work . it shows your lack of experience in the gym to think that if you don’t even do crunches you’d somehow be good at leg raises or hanging pikes simply because you do squats and chins.
same thing goes for the curling, although biceps do get signifant stimulation from compound upper body pulls, you’ll reap even more cosmetic and performance benefit if you add an adequate amount of direct arm work where appropriate.
same for abs. squat all you want, but if you want great abs you’re gonna need to give them some direct work and focus on progression in those movements.
Bottom line - lift heavy compound movements and your abs will grow. Plus you get the benefit of the other muscles growing, not just abs. Want to see the results? Single digit BF. Diet down.[/quote]
just out of curiousity, i wonder what you look like and how strong you are. at the end of the day, those of us with a lot of quality experience understand that abs are one of those muscle groups that, for most people anyways, need direct work in order to be great.