Ques: Did you ever hear somebody tearing their abs/rectus abdominis muscle or getting injured in this region?
No…I haven’t!
While I am in the process of building it; I have NEVER paid too attention to this muscle. Perhaps this is the first time I have brought my attention to this muscle group properly – meaning when I treating it as a body part and training it.
Here are my reasons:
1) It is a muscle’s – Rectus Abdominis (& Obliques) form only one part of the core and very small muscle group in compare to many others in our body. Core’s reliance is also on, much bigger and functionally important – Spinal and pelvic floor muscles.
2) Fact: It is one of the most worked muscle in our day today life and in any field sport. Therefore, it may need to be rested. Think of it as anterior spine for visualisation purposes.
3) Think of our abdominal area as your dressing room full of cupboards except that it stores fat (adipocytes) instead of clothes.
4) For this muscle group to show up, one needs to empty these fat stores. I am in the process as you can see in the pics. Burn more or eat less. It is a slow process and no supplement can make it disappear.
5) For this muscle group to build bigger, one needs to train this muscle group JUST HOW WE TRAIN other muscle groups. However, to keep it healthy/active, which is the need of the sport, one needs whole body work-out.
Considering all the above factors one should not focus too much on building abs. Instead one should:
a) Train the whole body (specific to the sport). Think of other muscles attached to any muscle function – antagonist or synergists; because it is not just about that one muscle when it comes to fitness.
b) Treat this as a small muscle group and attend to it accordingly. No need for those crunches everyday. Leave aside 100’s! Think of an athlete – staying in flexed position (same muscle) almost all through the day.
c) Warm it up just how we would warm up different body parts before a game/match
d) Don’t ‘over train’ this muscle group in lieu of fitness. It has a HUGE contribution from ‘nutrition’ and/or creating calorie deficit. Therefore, training this won’t get you where you want to be unless you burn fat.
e) From field sports perspective, over-doing it can compromise your ‘spine’ health, and also, would create imbalance in the core. This can further lure injuries anywhere in the body – its The Core at play here.
f) It is impossible to create a whole body training sequence (in any form of training including yoga) without attending to this inadvertently. So don’t worry…it is getting trained for what’s it worth.
g) Although it is incorrect to say this as everything has to work together in a movement; however, if I were rate it as per the importance in a movement; it would be minimal. Important of course…but then It does what it does even without showing up.
Having said all that…it is not bad to build ‘abs’. It is great. Just that don’t rush into the process. Don’t break your ‘back’ in lieu of building these boxes. Or compromise on other training that, may be of more help to you, given your situation in lieu of beautifying your appearance.
Example: I am very often asked by my boys – how can we get abs without training for it?
Science. I would snap 🙂
I am on it now…will try my best. However it is more challenging for me than any serious athlete because I don’t change my diet. I want to achieve it while eating the food that I eat regularly, living the life same as usual, and training the same time. Its more like food management for me than changing my diet or stop eating anything specific.
Calorie deficit for me comes from training and not from diet which is very hard because I never over train. And this is where the study aspect comes for me.
Ques: How do you do it keeping everything same?
Ans: By improving your peak performance.
Umesh Chhikara 