power

MY ABS!!

So recently I have been worrying about ab development, yet I have been on the fence about it. I do enough heavy legs, deadlifts and other core work to where my abs are very strong and developed under my winter coat.

I finally found something from a well respected person in the strength arena to back up my ideas against crunches.

Here is Charles Poliquin's take on ab training...

Q: Is there a best overall abdominal exercise? Is there ever a need for an athlete to specialize in ab training?

A: The best ab exercise? Squatting. Next is deadlifting.

Abdominal specialization for athletes? It could happen, but the abs actually have very little potential for strength increases when compared to other muscles like calves. Along with the grip, the abdominals are the least likely to improve with training. Some of these guys can claim all these poundages used in ab training, but it's actually the psoas doing the work.

If you truly isolate the abs, after six to eight weeks an athlete will plateau the rest of his life. Research has shown that the most coordinated athletes master the most difficult abdominal exercises in six to eight weeks. The only things that increase abdominal improvement are squatting and deadlifting.
Have those guys into core training ever trained anyone strong? Bring me someone then. I find that it's just a con job and a disgrace to the strength coaching community.

I tend to agree with him in that I get very little out of my ab workouts, but find my abs toasted after a hard posterior chain workout or squat work out.
We'll see....