How Long Should I Work Out My Abs for Best Results?
Conversely, if you feel fully recovered within 48 hours, you might experiment with slightly increasing the intensity or volume of your workouts. By prioritizing recovery and tailoring your approach to your body’s needs, you’ll maximize your chances of achieving visible ab muscle growth. Incorporating 3 to 5 different ab exercises per workout is generally recommended to ensure comprehensive muscle engagement.
Rest and Recovery: Ensure at least 48 hours between workouts to prevent overtraining and promote muscle repair
Yes, ab workouts effectively build strength and muscle mass in the abdominal area. They provide similar stimulation as training other muscle groups. For best results, combine ab training with overall core workouts and proper nutrition.
Set Clear Fitness Goals
If your body fat levels aren’t in check, no amount of abs workouts will matter. To increase the intensity, you can add a crunch at the top of the movement. As you bring your leg back to the starting position, lift your torso off the mat and crunch your abs. As you build a stronger core, you can increase the reps or add a few more sets to your circuit. Remember, it’s not about how fast you can do the flutter kicks, but the control and precision of the movement.

Flexion Based Exercises
Nearly all rectus abdominis training methods have this in common. Jeff Cavaliere is a Physical Therapist, Strength Coach and creator of the ATHLEAN-X Training Programs and ATHLEAN-Rx Supplements. His programs produce “next level” achievements in muscle size, strength and performance for professional athletes and anyone looking to build a muscular athletic physique. So, if you’re training your core like a madman but ignoring your resistance training workout routine, dietary intake, and cardio workouts, you’re not going to see progress. And unless you deal with it head-on, all the abs exercises in your go-to core routine won’t make a difference.
- Whether you do strength training, bodybuilding, or fitness workouts, this would likely mean training targeted muscle groups between one and three times per week.
- For instance, planks engage a broader range of core muscles and are more effective in building core stability than crunches alone.
- V-sits are challenging but great as a challenging core movement.
- The answer to your question, how often should I train abs, can also depend on how fast you recover.
- It engages your rectus abdominis and obliques, and by keeping your back flat on the ground, you work your abs while keeping your spine in a happy, neutral position.
- You might further benefit from the SKIN SPLITTING STACK to enhance strength, endurance, and your body’s ability to recover.
High-Protein Diets
This guide includes ab exercises that are simple yet effective. From planks to crunches, you’ll be working your upper body, hips, and thighs as well. Are you a beginner looking to build a strong core, but not sure where to start? Then I’ve got the harna scam best ab workout for you to do right at home.
What do we know about muscle growth?
But if your body fat percentage is too high, your abs will never show. Because when it comes to abs, it’s not about how many crunches you do. It’s about how many times you choose a healthy diet over a bad diet.
Overweight (32-39% Body Fat)

Engaging your core means tightening all of these muscles to create a stable base for your movements. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to how long an ab workout should be. However, most experts agree that you should aim for at least minutes of ab exercises per workout. This can be broken down into sets of exercises with rest periods in between.
Body Fat Percentage and Visible Abs
The bridge is a great foundational exercise, perfect to kick off this ab circuit. Hopefully, this is a post you bookmark, as it’s probably one of the most important ones I’ve ever written. We recommend you do 2-3 warm-up sets with gradually increasing weight. For starters, static stretching will not result in the reduction of the chance of injury.
Specific Exercises
Some of my favorite exercises for abdominal development include decline sit-ups, cable crunches, and weighted abdominal machines. I also find leg raise variations, such as hanging leg raises and weighted cable leg raises, to be excellent for targeting the lower part of the abs. Other ab exercises that engage multiple core muscles include bird-dogs and hip lifts.
Incorporating Mountain Climbers for Dynamic Core Engagement
Cardio exercise is a great way to burn extra fat to help those abs shine through. High-intensity interval training (HIIT) involves short bursts of intense activity and is one of the most effective ways to lose weight. It also boosts your metabolism to keep the calorie-burning ticking, helping ensure you remain in the all-important calorie deficit. It’s also important not to do the “wrong” ab exercises, Mandell Windt says. “As a trainer, I see many otherwise sedentary people do sit-ups and crunches religiously.” To avoid pain and reap maximum benefits, perform ab exercises at a slow and controlled pace, “and make sure you feel the abs fire with each and every rep,” Mandell Windt says.
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