
Reps Sets and Rest in strength, hypertrophy and endurance training And the set is always stopped when it’s clear the bodybuilder could have squeezed out a few more reps.

Sometimes they’ll get real heavy using fewer reps on the press or squats, but most sets involve a steady rhythmic pace of 10 to 12 reps. So how do they train? With moderate weight, a lot of sets and reps and they push at least one set of them close to max effort. In fact, many will alternate reps ranges, sets and rest during the same workout. It would be nice if you could plug your vital statistics into a computer and calculate that magical rearrangement, but it doesn’t work that way! For this reason, most bodybuilders will keep changing their reps ranges, sets and rest throughout the years. The main key to remember about how often to do abs workouts is that if it is sore, let it heal before you train it again, and even if it never gets sore give those muscles at least one day of rest a week.Everyone wonders if there is a magic reps ranges, sets and rest that will produce the biggest and fastest gains in muscle size. The only difference is that abdominal muscles are particularly strong and can take a fair amount of punishment before they need to rest and heal, and they heal slightly faster than most other muscles, but only slightly. When it comes down to it, your abdominal and core muscles are just like any other muscle group in your body and should be trained accordingly. If 48 hours have passed and you are still sore, either wait another 24 hours or switch to a lighter toning routine to avoid derailing your schedule, just make sure that you never do strength training on sore muscles. The general rule is that you should wait at least 48 hours before repeating a strength training routine or targeting the same muscles. With high intensity abdominal strength training, working your abs more than 3 times a week is usually too much. If you exercise these muscles again with a strength training routine you will just reinjure the muscles in the same areas they were injured before, essentially setting you back in your goals, not getting you there faster.

You should never repeat a strength training routine on sore muscles this is a sign that your muscles are still healing from the damage they sustained from the last workout routine. If you are doing a strength training routine correctly, you should be sore after each routine, and this is what determines how often you should do abdominal programs. In fact, damaging the muscle fiber by tearing it is actually the intention of a strength training routine and it is because of this that you need to limit the frequency that you do this style of core routine. With an abs exercise routine consisting of high intensity exercises there is a much greater incident of muscle damage. Those who need to be more careful with working out everyday are those who do more aggressive strength training exercises consisting of a high intensity exercise (high weight/resistance or difficult bodyweight exercises) with a lower number of repetitions per set (3 sets of 4-10 repetitions).

High Intensity / Low Repetition Abdominal Programs Just make sure you take at least one day off each week, even if you never get sore. How often can you train with a low intensity/high rep approach? A toning style core routine can be performed 4-6 days per week once you have built up your tolerance for those exercises, but if you become overly sore you may need to take a 48 hour break to allow muscles to properly heal.

Because the exercise is less intense it will not rip the muscle fibers as often or as much as a higher intensity abdominal exercise, which means you can do this style of exercise more often with less of a chance of becoming too sore to exercise or bringing about repetitive stress syndrome. This is primarily due to the lower intensity of an exercise used for such a routine. Low Intensity / High Repetition Abdominal Routinesįor those who mainly focus on a toning style of exercise consisting of lower intensity exercises (using light weight or no weight, low difficulty exercises) with a higher number of repetitions per set (3-4 sets of 12-20 repetitions), reaching your threshold takes a bit longer. But how much is too much? Is it okay to work your abs everyday? Can you over train your abdominal muscles? Yes, there is such a thing as too much, and you can over train your abdominal muscles but how quickly you get to that point all depends on exactly how you train. Having a slim, trim waistline or defined washboard stomach is almost a national obsession that motivates people to intensively work their core muscles.
