Why are abs usually trained more than the other muscles?

most people train the abs isometricly ae crunches or sit ups

that means it burns more.

but that and everyone wants abs. id rather have blocky ugly looking abs from lifting weight with them then have tight sinny twig abs.
 
They train the abs more than any other muscle because they don't know that the abdominal muscle just like any other , needs recovery and rest in order to grow. Even though the abdominal area is likely more able to recover, you still need to rest the area in order for it to grow.
 
I just though since they are smaller muscles they need less time to heal, hence you can do them two days in a row then a break or eod
 
no, no, no. all muscles need a certain amount of time to recover based on how depleted certain substrates get and also on muscle fiber type. raul is exactly right in his comments, however lets try to get a better understanding of why one would train the area more often.

first, you can break it up into different sections, ie: upper abs (crunches and the like), lower abs (pelvic tilting motions like a proper hanging leg raise - to do this right you start by initiating the movement through the pelvis, not at the hip joint), obliques for both sideways movement and twisting movements. these are four different areas that can be worked on separate days so you would still do abs everyday, but not the same part of them. second, one may wish to put a little more emphasis on core training since it is important (ie: twice per week, but with lower volume).

anyway, here are some great articles to read about ab training from ian king:

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yeah its alot of reading, but it is interesting and you will change your mind about ab training, king just makes too much sense. stop listening to magazines owned by supplement companies. they don't want us to learn the truth because then we will not need their useless routines and overhyped supplements (no i'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it is quite obvious that most supplements don't live up to the hype and can be purchased much cheaper in bulk from places like kilosports and if looking for prohormones, on this site).

cheers, pete
 
JohnGafnea said:
Is it a different "type" of muscle?
Click to expand...

I've always figured, for hypertrophy purposes, ALL muscles should be trained every other day.
This can overtrain your CNS, but is much more anabolic than regular training. Since people do not usually keep track of their ab strength, they trained them several times per week and got good hypertrophy results.
 
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