How To BUILD More Visible Abs (3 Science-Based Steps)

I remember years back during one of the first times I was able to see my abs. It was impressive, but my abs just didn't pop how I wanted them to. But as the years went by and my six pack started to get closer and closer to what I envisioned, I came to the realization that if you want to really make your six pack pop and develop abs that become apparent even at a higher body fat percentage, then one of the ways you can achieve this is by actually growing your abs. Now don't get me wrong, your nutrition and lowering your body fat levels are of utmost importance when it comes to achieving a six pack. But what most people don't realize is that the abs are just like any other muscle. Choose the right abs exercises and get stronger with them over time and the abs will respond with growth and hence improve the overall look and visibility of your six pack. Research is in agreement with this. For instance, a recent 2017 paper analyzed the effect of 10 weeks of regular AB training on AB growth in 28 college level male soccer players and as shown Here, after the 10 weeks they experienced a significant 2.1 mm increase, 1.9 mm increase and 2.7 mm increase in the thickness of their upper, mid and lower abs, respectively, which likely enhanced the appearance of their abdominal muscles as a result. However, in order to successfully grow your abs and see the best results with it, there's a few key steps that research indicates are crucial that you nail down, and in this video, that's exactly what I'll cover. The first step is choosing the right exercises to perform, because although there are countless abs exercises for you to choose from, we know that not all of them are equally effective at growing your abs. For instance, the results in abdominal growth from the 2017 paper I mentioned earlier were only achieved in subjects that performed only dynamic abs exercises like the Ab Wheel rollout, for example, whereas subjects that performed only static or isometric abs exercises like the Plank experienced no abdominal growth after the 10 weeks. Which is likely because we know that isometric exercises where the muscle lengths don't change throughout the exercise just aren't as effective for growth. Therefore, static exercises like the Plank just would not be your best bet for growing your abs when compared to dynamic exercises that take the abdominal muscles throughout their whole whole range of motion. More specifically though, you want to opt for dynamic abs exercises that can be conveniently overloaded with weight because as I mentioned earlier, you need to treat your abs like any other muscle group, meaning that you'll want to overload them with more and more external load over time in order to continue stimulating their growth. And the easiest way to do this is by performing weighted abs exercises. Now, again, here you have plenty of weighted exercises to choose from, but what I'd recommend is first pick one or two weighted abs exercises for the upper abs and then another one or two for the lower abs and incorporate them into your existing routine. For the upper abs, top down exercises where the shoulders are brought down towards your hips are going to be the most effective. The weighted cable crunch is a great option for this, and so is a weighted Swiss ball crunch, which can both be conveniently overloaded with weight over time. And then for the lower abs, you want to choose bottom up movements where the hips are brought up towards the shoulders. And as I've mentioned in my past lower abs video, the reverse crunch and the hanging leg raise are both great options that can also be conveniently overloaded with weight. Now, after you try out and pick the weighted abs exercises that feel the best for you, you want to then implement step two by executing them properly, which is where most people just go wrong, because most people don't effectively activate the abs very well even with unweighted abs exercises. So when you then throw on some weight into the mix, they start swinging and letting other muscles take over even more. And instead of growing their abs, they end up growing and strengthening other muscle groups like the hip flexors instead. For example, let's take a look at a top down movement like the weighted cable crunch. What most people do here is they'll use momentum at their hips to move the weight downwards, especially if the selected weight is too heavy for them, which just makes this more of a hip flexor exercise than one for the upper abs. Instead, first choose a lighter weight that you can actually control. And then lock your hips into the starting position with your knees bent at roughly 90 degrees. And then from here, exhale and tighten your abs by thinking about drawing your belly button in towards your spine to create more stability. And then you can crunch the weight downwards by bringing your shoulders down towards your hips by flexing your spine, as this is exactly what the abs are responsible for doing. And as you crunch down, don't let your hips sink back into your heels, you want to instead keep them locked in the starting position. All the movement should simply come from the flexion of your spine, because doing it this way is going to make a huge difference, not only in the contraction you'll feel in your upper abs, but the resulting abdominal growth you'll experience as well. And then for bottom up movements like the reverse Crunch. Again, you need to avoid aimlessly swinging and just using momentum, as this just makes it a hip flexor exercise with very little stimulation of the lower ab. So instead you need to first again exhale and tighten your abs by drawing your belly button in while moving into posterior pelvic tilt such that your lower back is flat against the bench. And then from here, just think about raising your pelvis up off the bench and curling it towards your belly button while visualizing your lower abs working to do so again. By doing this and actually controlling the movement, it's going to minimize the tension placed on the hip flexors and instead shift that tension to the lower abs once you get your form down. It's now vital that you implement step three, which is to overload these weighted abs exercises as you get stronger with them, as this is going to be the key to actually stimulating their growth over time. And just so you have a systematic way of doing so, what I'd recommend is stick to a rep range of roughly 10 to 15 reps for your sets of weighted abs exercises exercises and overload it based on that rep range. So, for example, let's say you have three sets of the weighted cable crunch to do. Once you can comfortably complete all three sets of the exercise with 15 quality reps, then you're now ready to further overload it by simply increasing the weight to the next increment. And then again with the new weight, once you build up the abdominal strength to complete three sets of 15 quality reps, you can proceed to bump up the weight even more and repeat the process. And that right there is the general approach that you want to take with all of your weighted abs exercises, just to ensure that you're actually challenging them enough to stimulate growth.

So I hope that you're able to see that by using this three step approach, we can actually build our abs, increase their thickness and actually make it so that they look better once you actually reveal your six pack. But the catch is you need to reveal your six pack in the first place. And this is where nutrition becomes absolutely essential, is where you need to ensure that you're not only eating the right foods, but that you're also eating them in the right amount so that you can strip off the excess body fat. And for an all in one, step by step science based program that teaches you not only how to work out optimally, but also shows you how to set up your nutrition such that you can effortlessly drop fat week after week to build and reveal your six pack, simply head on over to builtwithscience.com and and take the body type quiz to discover which fat loss program is best for you. And a quick shout out to the transformation of the week Noel, who ran this program for 16 weeks and as you can see attained the six pack that he was after. Anyways, thank you so much for watching guys. Hope you enjoyed this one. Please don't forget to show your support by giving the video a like leaving a comment down below as to what you'd like to see me cover next, subscribing to the channel and turning on post notifications as well as this all truly does help me out. Thank you so much everyone for your continued support. Really do appreciate it. See you next time.