GO EXTREME ABS

needed your opinion folks on whether or not it is ok to do something like 1000 reps of ab exericses.

the plan is to do upper/middle/lower on one day and the obliques on the other, and rest on the third. this is apart from my normal training.

I'm right now at about 500 reps a day, but after my last obliques, the middle of my back (right below the rib cage area) is cramped and so is my lower chest. it actually hurts a little if i take a deep breath.

can i go to a 1000 gradually, or should i just endure this and reach 1000. or should i abandon the plan cuz its not good for the lumbar spine or something?

would really appreciate your inputs.

It's a myth that crunches get rid of the ab flab. Diet is much more important then how many crunches you do for abs, I myself do have periods when I do no direct ab work and still get great results.

Focus on your diet and do less ab work and you may surprise yourself. :)

The best way to get abs has always been and will always be a strict diet and cardio. ease up a little on your daily 500 and instead throw in some good 'ol cardio as soon as you can take a deep breath without pain. Until then I'd say let your body heal and avoid the chance of really hurting yourself.
Adjust your cardio, diet, and different types of ab workouts, i.e. Hanging leg raises or p90X ab routine if you want to feel your abs big time, and you'll see results.
Remember quality over quantity.
Hope this helps.

im no expert, but i think 500 crunches is overkill. if you can do 500 crunches then the quality of the crunches is probably not very good. for me when i do crunches, i struggle around the 20-25 rep and thats 1 set. i really focus on the squeeze and contraction just like any other body part. if u can do more than 25 reps, then your probably not squeezing enough. but if your doing 10 sets of 25 reps then thats too much as well. but hey, if it works for you then do wut works! but i would stay with 4 sets 25 reps for upper and mid, and 4 sets for lower.

ur right nelson. but i'm not doing crunches to get rid of belly fat, that is purely by cleaning my diet (for now). cardio should follow in a while.

hey loyalt, that's the figure i'm kinda getting towards. the 500 is split across 4-5 variations. normal lying crunches, declined, leg raises, hanging leg raises , double crunches (if thats what they are called) and swiss ball crunches. i do 20-30 reps a set and keep going from one to another till i hit the 500 mark.

i do very little cardio (agreed), about 1 hour a week. but increasing that is going to go against my gaining cycle goals. so mebbe the next 6 weeks when i work on endurance, i will increase my cardio as well.

thanks folks.

Should you do lots of situps to reduce fat around your middle?
No. Exercising the area from which you want to lose fat is called "spot reduction". Spot reduction is now believed to be a myth. Research shows that fat is lost all over your body, not just in the area that you work.
Try to do sets in the 15-30 rep range.
Pick easy exercises to start with and when you can happily do about 2 sets in a row of an exercise, try harder ones.
Only rest when you absolutely must, so take a short (10-15sec) rest between two sets of the same exercise, but none between lower and upper abs.
Try to take about 1 second for each rep, except for ab crunches which you do slower (2 secs/rep) for a better contraction and 1/4 crunches which you should do fast (2 reps/sec) because you're hardly moving. And remember when trying to burn fat which will result in nice abs a good diet is your best friend,and "Moderate" exercise because intense exercise burns glycogen not fat, so keep the intensity at about the level where you are beginning to puff a little.
Here are some good safe ab exercises Ramnathk try to do these,
For the lower abs, in increasing order of difficulty:

lying leg raises
reverse crunches
vertical lying leg thrusts
hanging knee raises
hanging leg raises
For the upper abs:

ab crunches
1/4 crunches
cross-knee crunches
pulldown crunches

Great looking abs are more a product of a great diet. However ab strength is even more important to good back health, and your ability to lift heavier weights.

you got that right BG...One of the best ab exercises are pushaways just pushaway from the table after you had your portion...lol.

lol pushaways....now those are the tough ones

Abs come when you diet right, cardio & training them.

500 crunches????? Would you do 500 reps for you chest or back? Abs are just like any other muscle, abs are 99% diet.

Korjer... great point there. it will just overwork them and there is no point whatsoever to do that many crunches. i agree Korjer, well put =]

I had an older trainer who had me doing about 500 reps total abs..4-5 days a week..I too had a lot of pain between my ribs..when I took a deep breath or if I rotated my body slightly. I went to a massage therapist who asked if I had been in an accident. They had to do 'rib striping' which is suppose to be painful, but was nothing compared to what I was already going through. After.. training that way for 9 months..I went and got feedback after a figure competition and the judge told me(without knowing my workout program) to stop doing sidebenders all together.. I kept the other excercise which totaled to about 250 reps 4 days a week...and eventually the pain went away. Choose your trainer wisely.

DIET MAN! IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOAL.YOU SHOULD ALSO DO CARDIO SUCH AS: RUNNING OR BICYCLING RIGHT AFTER YOU DO ABS, THIS HELPS TO BURN MORE FAT SEEING AS THE LYCOGEN IN YOUR BODY IS ALREADY USED UP. GOOD LUCK MAN..

Plenty of core exercise, moderate cardio, a few ab isolation movements and a STRICT diet should result in great abs!

@Marksteven:

You got some very good results!

What is a strict diet for you? Or better said what do you eat during a diet?

Thanks in advance

Chris

Hey Chris! Sorry for the late reply - busy at work!

My diet consists of eating clean - no saturated fat, high fructose corn syrup, or simple carbs (except maybe right after a workout). I eat so much oatmeal, chicken breasts, spinach and sweet potatoes that the people at Safeway pretty much know to keep those in stock just for me! LOL...

But also, I work my abs 4-5 days a week, splitting it up between upper abs, lower abs and obliques.

And one of the greatest core exercises to me is using the ab wheel! (Next are cable crunches).

Hi Marksteven,

When you say eating clean...do u mean cutting out all carbs?? Is there any side effect of doing that from our diet. And for building abs what all exercises we can do (not 500 reps :) )
My coach suggested going on liquid diet and cutting out carbs completely.. I wanna know from the group is it safe ....