Tout dans la vie est une question d'équilibre d'où la nécessité de garder un esprit sain dans un corps sain.

Discipline-Volonté-Persévérance

Everything in life is a matter of balance therefore one needs to keep a healthy mind in a healthy body.

Discipline-Will-Perseverance.

E. do REGO

Monday, May 18, 2009

Train Abs First by Tim Henriques


Conventional wisdom says to train abs last because they're stabilizers and we don't want our stabilizers to be fatigued during other exercises. Yeah, I buy that. But for me and a lot of my clients and students, training abs first flat out works better.

I don't really enjoy training abs, but I like to train everything else. Once I'm finished training the good stuff and just have abs left, I have nothing to look forward to. Plus, I'm tired from the workout and may not have as much time left as I'd like. So what happens? I either half-ass it through the ab workout, cut it short, or just skip it all together.

I started training abs first while I'm fresh so I can go hard on 'em. I still have something to look forward to after, so instead of not wanting to hit abs, I like doing them. Sort of like the kid who holds his nose and begrudgingly eats his veggies just to get to the ice cream. So basically, I never skip them now.

On top of that, my performance hasn't suffered at all; I can still bench heavy with tired abs. Abs recover super fast, and the more trained they are, the quicker they recover. Even when moving on to legs after training abs, I spend enough time warming up for squats that my abs are no longer fatigued. For example, I'll do abs, bike for five minutes, then do some dynamic stretches, and by that time my abs are fine.

If you have a super-heavy leg day scheduled, then don't train abs that day. But that's probably once a week, so you should still be able to train 'em with a pretty high frequency (I like two to four times a week). Plus, I've gotten better visible results doing it this way, so it's a win-win situation.

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