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2005/10/10, 09:29 PM
Is it alright if you train your abs every time you are at the gym for like 5 - 10 min or is that over training? I mean i here people say you should only train them 2 -3 times a week if you do 4-5 is that 2 much ? thanks in advance for the advice.
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2005/10/11, 10:25 PM
The abdominal wall is skeletal muscle, therefore if you train it everyday, you run the risk of a phenomena called hypertonicity (chronic shortening and tightening of a muscle). This can commonly be seen throughout any gym. Look at the the angle of a persons sternum(chest), if it's steep and depressed then that's a pretty good indicator of upper abominal hypertonicity relative to lower abdominal weakness (yes there is a difference).
Now this doesn't mean that you can't train the abdominal wall everday in an educated manner. An example would be on Monday, you'd train you're lower abdominals, tuesday would be obliques and Wednesday would be upper. Or if you want to train the entire abdominal wall in one workout session make sure you train the lower abs first, then the obliques and lastly the upper abs (unless you are advanced and are under the guidence of a trained professional).
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2005/10/11, 10:42 PM
FWIW that's one of the best answers I've seen to that question.
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Mike
in Pensacola Now.
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2005/10/12, 01:28 AM
Twice per week with resistance is fine, I would do no more. The ab muscles are just that, and also need rest time to grow as any other muscle. Like for instance Monday and Thursday would be good.
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If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything....
bb1fit@freetrainers.com
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2005/10/12, 09:09 PM
thank you mikencharleston
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2005/10/12, 10:39 PM
No thanks needed. I read an article a couple of years ago but can't name the source. (Getting old is a bummer) The theory sounded good and I'm one of those knuckleheads that will try anything once if the approach sounds valid just to see if it has any real value. The concept goes against what many of us have practiced for more years than I care to admit. I did a routine using your approach for two weeks. My abs have never been that sore before and in the end I took the easy way out and went back to twice a week as it was more a time factor rather than a best approach to an individual body part training.
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Mike
in Pensacola Now.
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2005/10/13, 09:41 PM
Another concept that is still hard to accept for many is the differentiation between the upper and lower abs. Early on in my career, I worked for 24 hour fitness (boo) and they taught us the priciple of the rubber band. Which me, being a 20 year old kid who's education was a psychotic football coach and muscle magazines, believed it right away!
They basically looked at an anatomy chart and saw that since there was only one point of origin and one point of insertion, it MUST mean that when the muscle contracts...the WHOLE muscle contracts,"just like the biceps" as my "instructor" taught us.
The biggest problem with this is that structural anatomy (or gross anatomy) can tell us only some of the functions of the body, but it's functional anatomy that gives us a much broader picture.
If we look at the functional anatomy of the abdominal wall, we'll find 8 nerve innervations throughout the rectus abdominus. Not 2 like most muscles....8! This is a huge discovery, since every nerve innervation is like having another brain.
Another big discovery was that there is a distinct difference between the 6 nerves that innvervate the upper abs and the 2 that innvervate below the belly button. These nerves (illiohypograstric and illioinguinal) are commonly found to be electrically silent and/or dysfunctional due to our sedentary society and dysfunctional training techniques. This means that the lower abs, which can be classified as a posterior rotator of the pelvis (among many other functions) cannot effectively stabilize the pelvis correctly. This generally results in anterior pelvic tilt and hypertonicity of the illiosoas muscle. This leads to over-use of the illiosoas during many of the popular movements performed in the gym today...sit-up, leg raise, etc.
Some other complications that can occur due to illiosoas hypertonicity are: shortening of the quadratus lumborum (can cause strains), pain in the lumbar area (due to compressive forces on the lumbar spine), usually leads to protraction of the shoulder girdle and thoracic kyphosis (excessive rounding of the upper back and increased angle of the sternum), forward head posture....and on and on and on!
The amount of literature that is available on the abdominals is amazing! Every time I feel like I have a pretty good understanding, I read something that blows my mind and I feel like a moron all over again!
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2005/10/13, 09:44 PM
Sorry for any misspellings..."innervate"....wrote it pretty fast and without spell-check!
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2005/10/13, 09:46 PM
For anyone who wants the references I used here, just let me know and I'll post them.
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