However, there is potential for improvement despite this discrepancy between real and apparent representation. You just have to make sure you do your training properly. The biggest mistake people make is that they run too many repetitions. Usually, you can notice small or even significant improvements very shortly after starting your training. The abdomen becomes firmer and flatter. But then there is a period when no further improvement is visible. Intensive exercises, leg raises, crunches, nothing seems to be working, but why? The answer is simple: Running too many repetitions does not strengthen your abdominal muscles even if you use an abdominal exerciser. This is just an extremely painful form of endurance training. There are definitely much more comfortable and more effective ways to burn calories than lying down on a rubber mat for 20 minutes and performing small rocking movements without any real breaks. According to some experts, the maximum number of repetitions you should run is 8-10, while some others claim that you should only run 15-20 repetitions. Anyway, you should never run more than 50 reps.
The question which arises now is “How is it that abdominal muscle training is done so in spite of all scientific information on muscle building”? First, there is a prejudice - particularly common in women – that the belly should not be thicker but flatter. That is why muscle endurance training does not result in big muscles. Of course, this is utter nonsense: the lack of abdominal tension leads to a fat belly. The muscles need to be sufficiently strong in order for the “six pack” under the skin to be visible. Another problem is that the abdominal exercises are not performed in the full range of motion and the final contraction is not maintained. Sometimes, it is not even achieved. There are two reasons why this happens. First of all, the body always seeks ways to put minimum resistance, especially if too many repetitions are run. Second of all, rolling up the upper body or the pelvic area when doing crunches often leads to pain in the lumbar spine, which cuts off the strength and amplitude of the movements. However, the pain can be avoided unless you suffer from scoliosis in the lumbar area, bulging, spondylolisthesis, disc hernia or extremely irritable nociceptors, e.g. chronic back pain. In such cases, the exerciser must be supervised by a personal trainer or therapist, who needs to find the right abdominal exercises for them.
The rectus abdominis muscle is located between the chest and the pubic area. This muscle pulls the spine together when pulled. The contraction of the lumbar area when bending inward is called kyphosis. And that is where the problem arises: while with crunches, for example, the upper part of the lumbar spine is already kyphosed and the lower part is affected by lordosis and this creates a counter-curvature, which is where the pain comes from.
You can avoid the deformation of the spine by tilting the pelvis and putting active tension on the abdomen, so the lower back stays on the ground. This might be difficult to understand in theory. The idea is that an abs workout must be painless and yet effective at the same time. In summary, here are the things you have to consider:
- Proper load – no more than 2 kg.
- Take breaks of at least one minute between sets
- No fear of attachments and additional
- The exercises can be from heavy or light exercise
- Proper execution is fundamental (the risk of lordosis is eliminated)
- The exercise should be taken until the final contraction stage, which should be maintained for a few seconds
- Optimum condition and performance should be achieved
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