New to this.

[Dan C]

I thought abs and calfs u can workout everyday if u wanted

I know that it has been commonly preached that abdominals and calfs can be trained every day, but I am sorry to say that is pure dogma preached like its religion among the fitness community without any evidence given as to why. If you're training these muscles HARD and INTENSE enough to stimulate growth, you have to be doing enough damage to the muscles to be unable to train them every single day. If you can train them every single day with ease, you're not training them hard enough, and therefore not causing a great enough magnitude of microtears in the muscles. Yes, abdominals and calves are smaller muscles than other muscles in your body, but they are muscles nevertheless and work just like every other skeletal muscle in your body. Just because a particular muscle is smaller doesn't mean it can recover quicker. The most I would recommend training those muscles is two times per week, and even I don't do that myself. In the end, its up to you, but training them every single day back to back is absurd. If you keep damaging the muscle over and over day after day without giving it rest and time to repair and grow, how will those muscles ever have a chance to heal and grow??

[warmouth]

One more thing warmouth. When do u do ur abs and cardio?

Well... I don't. I should, and you should. I lack with my cardio big time. I never worry about abs because I get enough of them with everuthing else. May e 1 exercise a week.

[Dan C]

Well... I don't. I should, and you should. I lack with my cardio big time. I never worry about abs because I get enough of them with everuthing else. May e 1 exercise a week.

To be honest, I went a few years without doing any direct abdominal work, and I found myself feeling better and more capable in the ab area and abdominal related stuff than when I do direct ab work. If you are doing all of your core exercises such as bench press, squats, and especially deadlifts, all of those exercises engage the abdominal and core muscles more effectively than crunches, situps, etc. In fact, that is the way the abdominals are SUPPOSED to be trained: as support muscles that assist in supporting the body during major movements. Crunches, situps, weighted ab exercises are all unnatural movements. When in daily life do you ever bend at the waist like that as you do in a crunch or sit up? NEVER. The abdominals are supposed to tighten to stabilize and assist other major muscle groups during things like deadlifts, squats, etc.

And no, I am in no way in support of the latest ridiculous fad in the fitness industry of training on stabilizer balls and bosu balls in order to provide unstable environments during exercises where you could fall and kill yourself. All i'm saying is if you perform the solid major freeweight compound exercises, your abdominals will build and strengthen in proper proportion to everything else.

[warmouth]

I notice when doing any DB bench (incline, flat, decline, flyes, etc.) I get major ab work upon finishing the set. Then deads, bench, pulldowns and any tricep workout, my abs get thrashed! I'm not saying I never do abs, but IF I do, it is typically 1 set, 1 exercise a week. I like hanging knee or leg raises, or dragon flags.