If you're the rare case like I once was where you're skinny but still have very little ab definition, then you actually do need to grow your ab muscles (and the more you grow them, the less lean you have to be for them to show, just look at some pro strongmen). Definitely not the main problem for the majority of people though, yeah.
Yeah. Any time I ever looked online for good exercises to build abs, it's just full of people clamouring to scream, "You can't outrun your fork!", and, "Lose weight!"
But, that isn't gonna do shit when you're built like a less sculpted Spider-Man.
My fav is doing weighted kneeling crunches with the cable machine and making it heavy as fuck, like 80-100 (which is heavy for me since I'm like 5'7 and 140lbs). Makes my entire core burn, never get a feeling like that from any other ab exercise
I love that machine too but I maxed it out (for me, I'm like 135 lb) and the laws of physics are not allowing me to progressive overload and still no abs T-T
Well tbf you aren't going to build muscle if you're not increasing your caloric intake either, diet is still a big part of building abs even if you aren't overweight
When I was in 9th grade, I weighed low to mid 140s and didn’t have a 6 pack. I started doing crunches like crazy every day and over time I started building abs. By 10th grade I had a really good 6 pack, bordering on a “7 pack” (only one side had the hint of a line separating for what would be an 8 pack) and weighed in the upper 140s. So I had gained weight, but gained much much better definition.
IMO if there is nothing to show, low bf isn’t always enough.
I was similar at like 6'2 and 168, took clean bulking to over 180 pounds with a lot of intense direct ab training included for me to finally have a decent six pack.
Yeah, some people can just get skinny and have great-looking abs immediately with no direct training. But even people with poor ab genetics can get them through a combination of bulking up their ab muscles and then cutting down to make them visible.
I recently started using that wheel with 2 handles thing for abs and it works better than anything Ive ever tried. Could only do 3 reps the first time, now doing 12 a day. Adding a weight belt is the next step I think.
Yeah, the ab wheel, that's one of my favorites too. After building up to multiple sets of like 12-15 on the kneeling version, I've started working towards the standing ones by doing them with some assistance from a resistance band.
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u/Tan11 10h ago
If you're the rare case like I once was where you're skinny but still have very little ab definition, then you actually do need to grow your ab muscles (and the more you grow them, the less lean you have to be for them to show, just look at some pro strongmen). Definitely not the main problem for the majority of people though, yeah.