Also the greatest upper body movement is, in my mind the pullup, and you can’t tell me that it wont build fucking strong abs, and the benefits of it certainly don’t end there.
Also on a personal note, when i’ve deadlifted, squatted, AND benched and done a few sets of pullups ON the same day, I really wont have it in me mentally to do some fucking crunches, and guess what, I wont need to…
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Not to be that jerk who references old posts…but…
weren’t you the guy who posted a while back asking why you could do 50 pull-ups but couldn’t do a single sit-up.
The answer is out there.
‘Have it in you mentally’? Ab work is easy after heavy lifting, because your CNS is all fired up. It’s like brushing your teeth. Yes, it’s boring. Do it anyway, so that you never lose a lift because you have weak abs.
It is not at all a question of isolation work being pointless, Isolation work is very important. (Although personally I don’t think their is such a thing as an isolation exercise… just more and less demanding compound ones.)
The difference is that other muscle groups that you may want to isolate, such as your biceps, have a much greater potential for development, that is not easy to achieve with only compound movements.
The abs have little or no potential for growth, although, i agree, they can get stronger (obviously.)
Many people seem obsessed with abs without actually understanding their function, which is flexing the lumbar spine.
This movement doesn’t put a whole lot of stress on the abs, and is a reason why I think it’s a myth that ab training has a lot of potential; when it comes to increasing athletic performance. This is only possible if your abdominal muscles were weak and inefficient in the first place, in which case it can make huge improvements to your performance.
Therefore a 500lb squat is recruiting the abs much more than you may think because that recruits the lumbar spine an awful lot. It’s on this premise that I would say that someone reguarly performing the main compound lifts needn’t worry about ab training because the abs must be working efficiently for these lifts to be performed correctly and properly.
For example, you often here people say how they can not keep their back straight when squatting, this IS because of poor ab strength. But since this isn’t a problem for most people they DONT need to worry about ab training, since their abs must already be controlling their Lumbar spine effectively for them to squat with proper technique, as controlling the lumbar spine IS basically the ONLY function the abs serve.
P.S just so you can flame me more, Technique is NOT important, so long as you know your limits.
Also the greatest upper body movement is, in my mind the pullup, and you can’t tell me that it wont build fucking strong abs, and the benefits of it certainly don’t end there.
Also on a personal note, when i’ve deadlifted, squatted, AND benched and done a few sets of pullups ON the same day, I really wont have it in me mentally to do some fucking crunches, and guess what, I wont need to…
Not to be that jerk who references old posts…but…
weren’t you the guy who posted a while back asking why you could do 50 pull-ups but couldn’t do a single sit-up.
The answer is out there.
‘Have it in you mentally’? Ab work is easy after heavy lifting, because your CNS is all fired up. It’s like brushing your teeth. Yes, it’s boring. Do it anyway, so that you never lose a lift because you have weak abs.[/quote]
It is true that I can’t do one sit-up, but I doubt it is through weak abs, one of the things about sit-ups is that they are not strictly speaking an ab exercise. I think the reason I couldn’t do one was down to some sort of weakness in my hip flexors, as well as poor flexibility. I know I sound like a dick head saying all this anti-ab stuff, but its just my 2 cents. Im sure if you were to take any top powerlifter who had never done any direct ab work you would find an incredibly strong core…
[quote]alstan90 wrote:
It is true that I can’t do one sit-up, but I doubt it is through weak abs, one of the things about sit-ups is that they are not strictly speaking an ab exercise. I think the reason I couldn’t do one was down to some sort of weakness in my hip flexors, as well as poor flexibility. I know I sound like a dick head saying all this anti-ab stuff, but its just my 2 cents. Im sure if you were to take any top powerlifter who had never done any direct ab work you would find an incredibly strong core…[/quote]
I could be mistaken, but I don’t know that there are any top powerlifters who don’t do some ab work. Check out the video- “Training Secrets of The Westside Barbell Club”. It’s just one example, but they definitely include ab work. Heavy ab work.