What are your favorite exercises to develop nice abs?

J

josh223

Amateur Bodybuilder
I have been trying very very hard the past few months to build my 6pack.
stats: 6'0 207lbs 11-12% BF
I have a decent diet, workout very often and am on a Test/EQ cycle. I am in week 10 and I have had great progress, especially in my back, arms, and legs.

I do cardio almost everyday. Some days I do 10-30 mins of high intensity stair stepper, other days I do treadmill for 20 mins, or other days I stay on elliptical for 30-60 mins high/medium intensity.
I also do lots of squats, deadlifts, and weighted cable abs, ab machine, crunches, v-ups, medicine ball weighten crunches and many others. Leg lifts as well

The thing that bothers me is I work harder than my workout partners when It comes to abs. My one friend has 17%BF and you can see his abs...
My other lifting buddy is pretty much same build as me: 6'0 203 lbs hes about 13-14%bf and almost same diet. He does all the same lifts, and reps as me as well. He has a rediculously huge 8 pack. It seems he has little to no fat between his abs so you can see them very easily.

My question is what else do I have to do to get abs? Is ab showing determined by genetics or am I doing something wrong? my top 4 abs are very very visible now, but the bottom is having trouble showing. When I take large doses of letrozole and aromasin, I can see the bottom abs but they are pretty small. I'm guessing I am holding water on top of my abs?
 
Genetics brother. Diet is what will determine how well you see your abs. I'm around 14% bodyfat and can see an outline of my abs, and I dont do shit for them. My opinion is you are doing way to much cardio. The anabolics will probably do a good job of keeping you anabolic, but doing that much cardio while of will take away muscle more than help you keep it on. If your diets in check you shouldn't need to do cardio everyday.
 
Deit...we can all pretend the you can get a six pack (in my case an eight pack) by beating the crap out of your core. The painful truth is you cut your abs with a knife and a fork..low BF = wicked abs.

Don't be that guy....you know, the guy that works his abs constantly and still has a gut. There is at least one in every gym.
 
Definitely diet, but of course you have to have the genetics as well.

With that being said, best ab exercises in my opinion are not targetted ab exercises (like crunches, leg lifts, etc), but rather total body core exercises. LOVE doing front squats b/c if forces your mid-section to stabilize (abs must work or else you'll drop the weight in front of you). Another good one is doing pull-ups but with legs held straight out in front.
 
wutangnomo1 said:
Definitely diet, but of course you have to have the genetics as well.

With that being said, best ab exercises in my opinion are not targetted ab exercises (like crunches, leg lifts, etc), but rather total body core exercises. LOVE doing front squats b/c if forces your mid-section to stabilize (abs must work or else you'll drop the weight in front of you). Another good one is doing pull-ups but with legs held straight out in front.
Click to expand...

Bro I have had the same problem but I could never see my abs no matter how hard I worked them and now that I got with 3J and got my diet down and now I have abs that I never thought I would see. So for me its all in the diet, get your diet completley in check and im sure you will see the results your looking for.
 
To build your abs you would do abdominal exercises against a higher resistance for reps that you would do for any other muscle that you would want to build, doing so at a moderate speed. If your looking to cut, sculpt or tone your abs you would be doing lower resistance, even to the point of using just body weight for more repetitions and a higher speed.

Building exercises could include:
Machine Crunches
Weighted Decline Sit ups
Weighted Leg Raises
Cable Crunches
Cable Twists
DB oblique side crunches

Cutting Exercises could include:
Hanging Leg Raises
Body weight decline Sit ups
Medicine Ball Twists
As well as a lot of floor work using your bodyweight:
Straight legged sit ups
Scissors
Toe touches
Russian Twists
Mountain Climbers
Bicycles

Core Exercises Can include:
Planks
Side planks
Roll outs
Up downs
 
Ok yeah I can see my abs completely. They are just small. I don't "only workout abs"

abs are a small part of my routine. I love doing squats, especially front squats.

It just seems they don't stick out much so the small layer of fat I have makes it harder to see them. I don't have a gut whatsoever.

I guess it seems I just need to work better on my diet then
 
There's alot of good points here. I'd like to add that I, too, had the problem of the upper abs being more visible than the lower abs. Diet and genetics aside, I trained my abs and did cardio every third day, And in the ab portion, I selected 4 exercises, did three sets of each exercise, 20-30 reps/set with 30 seconds of rest between sets of the same exercise and one minute rest between different exercises. Since, I identified lower abs as the weak/problem area, I started with them first. Then I moved to the upper abs and then the obliques and I finished with a different exercise for the lower abs. The lower ab exercises done could be hanging (or roman chair) leg raises, hanging (or roman chair) knee-ups, bent knee leg raises, lying leg raises, steep decline bench situps, V-ups, bicycle crunches, bent knee sit-ups, bent-knee sit-ups w/ a stability ball... It took time, and I varied the exercises done from session to session, but this method was useful for me along side diet.
 
Never use weights, keep the abs small to accentuate the impact of huge pecs and delts up top and the X-frame sweeping out from below.

2 sets of 10 cable crunches 1 X/week.

Fuck the dumb shit.
 
Personally I hate doing any machines for cardio, run or ride an actual bicycle, swim, hike etc. It is harder work than the machines so it burns more calories, and it is a better cardio workout I think. I do a shit ton of cardio, and it's real cardio workouts, not just walking on a treadmill. It's all about your diet, I am still able to gain muscle on my cycle while doing all the cardio I do. I haven't done much core stuff by itself lately, just lifts that work core as well. Front squats, squats etc. I was doing the P90X ab ripper, and I actually really like that. But pretty soon I am going to start doing regular sit ups as I need to be ready for basic in the Army. Like everyone said, diet, genetics, and a good workout routine. You can't spot reduce fat, so the more you work your entire body, the quicker the fat comes off.
 
diet is key like mentioned so much above... as for exercises for your abs, there is really no need for them as CFM says. Get your diet in check, lower your bf% and u WILL see your abs more clearly.

And if your friend has a visable 8-pack he is NOT 13+%bf, impossible... sometimes I really wonder how u guys get these bf% numbers from... please don't tell me u are using one of those wonky scales that claims it can accurately tell your bf% haha ;)

if u look good who cares about all that shit!
 
china_wall said:
and if your friend has a visable 8-pack he is not 13+%bf, impossible... Sometimes i really wonder how u guys get these bf% numbers from... Please don't tell me u are using one of those wonky scales that claims it can accurately tell your bf% haha ;)

if u look good who cares about all that shit!
Click to expand...

lmao
 
Unless the person posting there BF % has been tested in a Hydrostatic Underwater chamber you do not know your true bodyfat % and you are only giving a ruff estimate.
 
To increase abs visibility theres 2 things u can do: make em bigger and reduce the amount of fat hiding them. The fat is the biggest concern, cause even if u got the biggest abs in the world, a few inches of fat on top of em will make em unnoticeable lol...
 
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