Hello guys,

I am in a muscle gain period and I was wondering whether I should focus more on the abdominals or not. I usually have some excercises for abs in my workout plan and I use a muscle gainer powder. I don't see much progress when it comes to the abdominals though.

Any advice? Should I focus more with much more excercices? Should I take some specific powder? Or is this something I can't have on a muscle gain period?

Hey man.

 

There is no reason you can't work abs while gaining muscle. In fact it would be weird if you didn't do any ab work.

 

You need to train your abs like you would train any other muscle group - with weights, and aiming to progressively overload in order to build muscle. Your core is such an important part of the body, as it is used for many different lifts as a stabilizer. Your core can also withstand a lot of punishment.

 

What sort of exercises are you currently doing?

 

No specific powder is going to give you abs. You may not be able to see much improvement in your abs is because they aren't built up yet, or your body fat may be too high.

 

What is your current body fat % ?

Well, I do train my abs (the truth is that I didn't train them constantly). I usually do Abdominal Crunches and Leg-lifts.

 

I always thought that tha appearance of the abs is mostly a matter of the diet someone follows, thats why I asked for a powder.

 

 

Now, as for the body fat % I don't know it yet. I searched a lot lately on how to calculated but I didn't get it. I only read that some sort of caliber has to be used, is that right?

Do you have any more information on that or even a website link?

If you check this forum post, I gave some suggestions for measuring body fat there, including using calipers:

http://scotthermanfitness.com/forums.php?pageAction=POSTS&subForumID=56&threadID=1253

 

It is true that abs are made in the kitchen, and are about 90% diet and 10% training. However, there is no special food or powder that will suddenly give you abs. You need to be eating a high protein, medium-low carb and medium-high fat diet, and have a low body fat %.

 

If you want your abs to really grow and be defined, you do need to make sure you are targeting them with specific ab work. Crunches and leg lifts are a good start. When doing ab exercises without weight, you may want to do high reps such as 20-30, and with weight you may want to focus more on 12-15 reps.

 

Have you seen Scott's video on building visible, blocky abs?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp1qOULDwXA&list=PLacPhVACI3MMq-ir_RXFmxtY11aUGC1eg&index=2

Hello guys,

I am in a muscle gain period and I was wondering whether I should focus more on the abdominals or not. I usually have some excercises for abs in my workout plan and I use a muscle gainer powder. I don't see much progress when it comes to the abdominals though.

Any advice? Should I focus more with much more excercices? Should I take some specific powder? Or is this something I can't have on a muscle gain period?

I get it. So there is no other way I can learn how to measure my body fat? I need to pay someone who already knows?

 

Also, I am trying to gain muscle and my diet includes high protein and hi carbs, so is this a problem you think?

my daily macros are

 

protein: 184 grams

carbs: 499 grams

fat: 71 grams

I used that link and calculated macros. The only think I am sure wasn't calculated right is the BODY FAT %. 18%

I dont know how excactly to find that number. Is 18% too high for me you think?

If you don't want to use calipers, there are also scales that use electrods to estimate the body fat amount. They are not expensive, and you can use them alone and get an estimate of the body fat in just a few sec.

http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/fitness/body-fat-scales-do-they-really-work.html#b

 

The article says that they are not accurate, but neither are calipers, expetially for bodybuilders. All this devices are useful just to get a rough estimate of the body fat (for example to calculate your meal plan) and to track progress.

 

Personally, I use calipers. I take the measures myself, and it took a long time to get consistent measures (if you bend your body when you take the measure, the measured clip thickness will be graeter then if you stayed straight). But what I like is that they really measure the fat that I don't like and I want to reduce: the under-skin fat!