Muscle Evolved

Should You Work Out Abs Everyday?

By Keenan Walsh · · Updated

Contents

The abdomen muscles are the muscles that everyone wants to be toned and shredded. whether it be because people want to have a nice beach body, or because they saw the abs on a hero from their favorite action film. These muscles look great when trained properly, but whether they show depends mostly on your body fat. Ab exercises strengthen the muscles; they don’t burn the fat covering them, so diet and overall activity matter most if you want to look leaner.

What Are The Abs?

Abs is short for abdominal. When most people hear the word abs, they will often think of the six-pack muscles below the chest. Most people imagine that muscle as the abs, but the abdominal muscles are separated into a few different sections that are all important.

These sections are called the rectus abdominis, the internal obliques, external obliques, and the transversus abdominis. All of these muscles play an important part in your body and your overall health, to read more about these muscles and what they do click here.

How To Work The Ab Muscles

There are two popular methods of exercising to work the ab muscles. You could do rep-based workouts for three to four sets. But in my personal opinion, it is better to use a timer for a specific amount of time and do as many reps of an individual exercise in that time frame.

You can use all different types of ab workouts but you want to make sure to hit all of the abdominal muscles in these workouts and you can even switch up your workouts every session to make a fresh experience for each time you workout. I personally follow a routine that uses different exercises for specific days.

Some of my favorite ab workouts include:

  • Decline Bench Sit-ups (Regular Sit-ups are great if you do not own or have access to a bench)
  • Alternate Leg Raises
  • Hanging Leg Raises
  • Regular Crunches
  • Twisting Crunch
  • Oblique Crunches
  • Planks

That list contains amazing workouts for the abs, but there are plenty of other ab workouts that are just as effective that you can research and attempt for yourself if you would like to try something new or just would like to add more to your routine.

Should The Abs Be Worked out every day?

How hard can you or should you work these muscles? Is it good to work them every day? Many people say that you can and some disagree. I have heard people who have been working out for years say that you can and should every day. Most exercise guidelines point to a different answer.

Hard ab training every day leaves little time for recovery, and focusing only on crunches can contribute to muscle imbalances read more here.

Other experts say the abs are like other muscles and need a break between hard sessions. A common recommendation is two to three times a week with about forty-eight hours of rest read more here. That matches the CDC’s advice to do muscle-strengthening work, including the abdomen, at least 2 days a week.

Conclusion

Doing daily ab workouts is something that I have been doing for a while. But after writing this article and doing the research I am considering changing my ab routine. I now see that hard ab training every day isn’t needed for results over the long term, and rest days help with recovery.

So should you work out abs every day? For hard ab workouts, the answer is no. The best way to train your abs is with hard work on two to three days a week with rest in between. Light core work like planks on other days is generally fine if you feel recovered. Many people say that rest is just as important as training. Risking the possible problems associated with overwork is not worth the grind.

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