Group: General Fitness & Exercise

General Fitness & Exercise
Created: 2011/12/31, Members: 382, Messages: 54581

Various general exercise related discussions. Find out what it takes to reach your fitness goals through daily effective exercise. With so many options we try to find out what works best.

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Feeling thicker around the middle

Kenvc1
Kenvc1
Posts: 12
Joined: 2002/01/31
United States
2002/03/04, 08:42 AM
I am working on gaining more mass, and so far I have put on 8 to 10 pounds.
I can see and measure more muscle mass in my arms and chest, and I still have great definition in my abs. I bought some calipers to measure body fat and am getting around 6% body fat. The only thing that is confusing me is that I am feeling thicker around the middle, although I don't seem to be developing any fat. Is that a result of working my abs too hard?
mikencharleston
mikencharleston
Posts: 1,585
Joined: 2002/01/09
United States
2002/03/04, 09:08 AM
That has happened to me before. I layed off the ab machines and made a point of really keeping isometric tension on the abs during all my lifting and the problem resolved itself. I still do some ab work but don't use any of the resistance machines.
Philia2
Philia2
Posts: 4,078
Joined: 2001/10/19
France
2002/03/05, 02:11 AM
Abs are not different from any other muscles so the rule of hypertrophie works there as well.
If you are happy with the size of your abs stop working them with resistance and you'll be fine.

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- Nina :o) La vie est toujours aussi belle.....