If you want a six-pack, you might be inclined to spend hours a day working your abs. However, this is not an effective way to build core muscle strength. Instead, you need to rest adequately between workouts to help your muscles recover. Keep in mind that if you want a toned tummy, you need to do more than just core exercises. You also must also follow a calorie-controlled diet and participate in regular cardio exercise.
The answer to that question is, yes, the abs and your core are different and they have a different function in your body than most other muscle groups. That’s why in this article we will make a case of why you should be training your abs every day of the week.
Indirect Ab Training
First of all, you need to understand that your abs and core get engaged in many different exercises when you train other muscles groups. So every time you hit the gym, you’re not only working your arms, chest, shoulders, or legs, you’re also working your core and abs. More so when an exercise requires a lot of body stabilization and keeping posture.
Therefore, if you add more exercises to your workouts that require more core engagement, you will be working your abs indirectly too.
Lack of Eccentric Overload
Unlike other muscle groups that reply on heavy eccentric load, the abs have the benefit of lack of overload and require a lot less rest time. So while you can’t train your biceps or chest everyday because you will overtrain them, this won’t happen with the abs because, again, there’s no heavy load eccentric contraction.
Now lets look at the two kinds of ab workouts:
If you want a small waist with tight, flat abs like a marathon runner then do the 3 minute ab workout. Its takes only 3 minutes and you do it every other day. It makes your abs strong enough to keep your abdominal cavity compressed and supported but it wont add so much muscle so as to increase your waist.
If you want big, powerful abs like a bodybuilder with big ridges and deep valleys then do this workout. This workout is like any other workout for a muscle that you want to get big and strong, its an intense hour long workout with heavy weights that you do once a week.
Train Abs 7 Days a Week
In order to train muscles effectively you have to understand their function in your body and how they are used to work. You have to mimic that work in your workouts and train them as often and as hard as they naturally would. For abs, it’s all about long duration and high repetition training. The lack of eccentric muscle overload spares the abs the risk of over-training and you can and should have an ab workout every day.