Can You Exercise Your Abs Everyday?

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Overview

If you want six-pack abs you've got to use a good strategy to get them. One part of your strategy will be the intensity and frequency that you choose for strength-training exercises. Doing 100 crunches a day is not the best approach. In fact, daily ab workouts will actually make it harder to attain your goal.

Common Training Myth

Common gym folklore says that your ab and low back muscles are "endurance" muscles that can be trained daily. However, your abdominal muscles really do not have different physical properties than the other muscles in your body. That means you should only train them -- at a maximum -- once every 48 hours, according to "Strength Training for Women," by Lori Incledon. Abdominal do have some endurance qualities because they are required for daily activity, Incledon notes, but strength training that develops your ab muscles mechanically stresses your muscle fibers in the same way you stress other muscles on your body that you are working to build.

How Your Muscles Grow

When you train your abs you create microscopic tears in your muscles and connective tissues. This prompts your body to produce new muscle proteins, which is what leads to increased strength and muscle growth. This occurs when you are at rest. That's why experienced weight lifters do not exercise the same muscle groups two days in a row, according to "Advanced Fitness Assessment and Exercise Prescription," by Vivian H. Heyward. It takes approximately 72 hours to rebuild muscle tissue after an intense workout.

Over training

When you do abdominal workouts every day you risk over training your muscles. When you over train, you experience a reduced synthesis of muscle proteins along with an increased rate of protein degradation in your muscles, notes Peter M. Tiidus, author of "Skeletal Muscle Damage and Repair." This produces the opposite effect you seek in training and leaves you more vulnerable to injury.

What Works

In lieu of daily training, you need a good strength training routine, a proper nutrition regimen and a good cardiovascular fitness plan. In fact, diet is at least as important as how often and how hard you exercise when it comes to abs, Incledon notes. That's because if you develop great abdominal muscles that are covered in fat you will not be able to see them. The bicycle maneuver performed on your back and the captain's chair in which you dangle your legs and rest your forearms and back on pads, then lift your knees, are the top two top ab exercises, according to the American Council on Exercise.