Six Things People Get All Wrong About Abs

MYTH 1. THE MORE CRUNCHES, THE BETTER

Let's get this out of the way first: It doesn’t matter how many crunches you do.

Getting those crunches in doesn't always do the trick. Seeing your abs is all about body fat, and you need to have 10% or less to see the six-pack. Replace the six-pack in your fridge with green, leafy veggies to start seeing the six-pack on your midsection.

MYTH 2. YOU NEED TO TRAIN ABS EVERY DAY

Work out your abs every day, see results, right? Not so fast.

Training abs every day won’t reduce the amount of body fat you carry. In fact, it may actually be counterproductive: You'll eventually reach an overtrained state, which can keep you out of the gym for a while, therefore slowing your progress even more.

MYTH 3. YOU CAN SPECIFICALLY TARGET THE LOWER ABS

Fun fact: Each of the abdominals is part of the same large muscle, the rectus abdominus. That means they all work together, even if they look distinct on your body.

Despite being linked via several different nerves, there's no way to really isolate any portion of the abs. Fortunately, you can hammer your lower abs, just as you can emphasize different parts of other muscle groups with different lifts. Certain moves—such as hanging knee raises—hit the lower abs harder, but they also hit the whole midsection.

MYTH 4. YOU DON'T NEED WEIGHT TO TRAIN ABS

Leave the weight out and you'll be fine, right?

As is the case with all muscles, abs require some kind of stimulus to grow—and without size, your abs won't be visible anyway. Moves like weighted situps and resisted leg raises will build the abs better than any unweighted version of the crunch.

MYTH 5. THE ONLY WAY TO TRAIN ABS IS BY BENDING FORWARD

The best ab exercises out there don't involve a crunching motion at all.

Moves such as the overhead press, squat, deadlift, and pull-up hit the abs harder than anything that involves spinal flexion. Plus, spinal flexion puts the back in a terrible position that can lead to serious injury. Swap the crunches for more overhead presses and watch heads turn this summer.

Alternatively, you can stay perfectly still. Exercises like the plank and side plank put lots of demands on your abs, even as you're not moving. (That's called an isometric exercise.)

MYTH 6. CUTTING WATER WEIGHT WILL HELP ABS SHOW

If you buy this myth, then your body is smarter than you are.

Dehydration might make you temporarily lighter, but it zaps water from skeletal muscles before anything else, because water is vital to several bodily processes that are much more important than flexing your abs. Ultimately, you'll just end up dehydrating yourself, and that will just lead to a significant decline in performance.

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