Quote:
Originally Posted by dr.jay
+1 for weighted excersises, abs are a muscle they need weight to grow. Dont know if you have any fat on your abdomen but you need to get your BF% down as low as you can to see the ab muscle, diet and cardio are the hardest things to do for me, I can get as big as a house but when it comes to abs I really have to smoke them to see results. Hope this helps
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... abs aren't genetic, they aren't doing 6 million crunches or hanging leg lifts either. The saying that "abs are made in the kitchen, not in the gym" is actually true to a certain extent. You can have the strongest core in the world without any ab definition if your BF isn't low enough (need to be around 10% or under for good ab definition).
I think that compound lifts help to strengthen your core the most (ie. squats), but for additional ab work I like to do weighted excercises as well. I switch between targeting upper and lower abs every few days. For upper abs I like to do weighted crunches on the floor with my legs in the air, and for lower abs I like to use a decline bench with a weight on my chest. One thing to keep in mind though, which is something that took me a long ass time to figure out, is that most people who do marathon ab work and never see results is usually because they don't have a proper diet, and also they don't train their abs correctly because they think that the abdominals work like a hinge like most other muscle groups. This is incorrect as if you do crunches, or any other ab excercise for that matter, like a hinge you are working your hip flexers instead of your abs. You have to work them like an accordian (sp?) where you really focus on contracting them as much as possible during the excercise, and that makes all the difference IMO.
**edit**
I just saw your pic posted so your not a noobie when it comes to working out. I would say that if you cut for two months you would have great ab definition, but if you don't like being "tiny," which I don't think you would be at 10lbs or so less, then you can just focus now on putting on mass and then cut for abs later on. Its hard to do both at the same time though unless you already have a low enough bf%.