How to Prevent Overtraining Abdominal Muscles in Bodybuilding

Take inventory of how many crunches, sit-ups, leg lifts, and trunks twists you have performed in the last month. Lose count? Are you making the progress that you would have hoped for at this point? Does your core feel stronger and more efficient? Do you see a stomach on the verge of a six-pack? People ask themselves those questions everyday. While cardiovascular condition does play a large part in how visible your abdominal muscles are from the outside, over-training is often the key culprit in underdeveloped ab muscles. Read through this step-by-step guide and then make a personal assessment. Decide if you are over-training your midsection. If you are, follow the steps and watch your abs become stronger and more visible by the workout.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Exercise equipment or a gym membership
• Comfortable place to stretch

Prevent Overtraining Your Abs

1. Understand the abdominal section. Your midsection, or core, is made up of four primary muscle groups: transversus abdominis, internal obliques, external obliques, and the rectus abdominus. Those four groups comprise much of your core, from just beneath your rib cage to your pelvic bone. If you perform more trunk twists than you do crunches, you will begin to see that your internal and external obliques develop at a greater rate than will your rectus abdominus. Keep your abdominal routine at two days per week and attempt to complete the same amount of sets and reps for each exercise.

2. Don't overload your abs. Too many people spend hours a week on their abdominal muscles with hopes of achieving six-pack abs. Remember, each group of the abdominal section is relatively small. Would you burn-out your biceps with pain-staking exercises for hours a week? Diet is half the battle, so make sure that you time your foods properly and eat a proper ratio of proteins, carbohydrates and healthy fats.

3. Work each of the four abdominal muscle groups twice per week. Trunk twists work great for both the internal and external obliques, while decline bench crunches will sufficiently work your rectus abdominus (which is most responsible for the six-pack ab look). Try a simple prone bridge to work your transversus abdominis. Complete two sets of each with no more than 20 reps to each set. You might even find that to be excessive. If so, simply cut down the amount of reps you complete.

4. Cardiovascular endurance training is the best method of sculpting your midsection. Maybe you have heard it before, but if you don't trim the fat, you will never see your abs. You might have the strongest core in the gym, but it will remain invisible until you become friendly with the treadmill.

5. Maybe your nutritional intake is inconsistent. You spend enough time on the treadmill and work your abs twice per week, but you are not seeing the results you would have hoped for at this point. Write down your daily diet for one week. Scrutinize it. Too much unhealthy fat? Late carbohydrates that your body simply can't turn into fuel? Too many people over-train when other methods of achieving desirable abs exist. Don't fall into that category.

Tips & Warnings

• Bored with the treadmill? Experience consistent knee pain? Try the elliptical trainer. It's great for anybody who wants to burn fat, but can't run on a consistent basis.
• Always stretch before you exercise. Your core muscles are the basis for many movements in cardiovascular endurance training and weight lifting. Some simple (non-weighted) trunk twists will stretch your obliques, while toe-touches will help to stretch the rest of your abdominal section.
• If you experience excessive soreness or any sharp pain in your abdomen, discontinue your exercise routine and consult a physician immediately.

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