Q: My abs don't line up evenly. Is there anything I can do to make them straight?
A: Other than take away their showtune collections, no, there's nothing you can do to straighten your abs. But look on the bright side: Even asymmetrical abs are still abs. And let's not forget that Owen McKibbin, the most popular cover model in the history of Men's Health US, has crooked midbody muscles. (His ears are kind of funny looking, too.)
Q: How often should I work my abs?
A: I put this question to Ian King, CSCS, an Australian strength coach and my coauthor on Book of Muscle. "You can do ab exercises for injury prevention every day if you want," King says. But if you're looking to improve performance that is, if you're trying to make your ab muscles bigger, stronger, or more powerful you should leave at least a day between abdominal workout.
The situp I talked about in the first question qualifies as a performance move. For injury prevention, King's favorite exercise is the thin tummy, which strengthens the deep abdominal muscles that act like a corset to stabilize your hips and lower back. (The bridge and side bridge that I described in the second question fall into this category, too.)
Lie on your back on the floor, knees bent, feet flat. Place your hands over your midsection so your thumbs touch your upper abs and your fingers spread across your lower abs. Now pull your abdominals in so you can feel the increased tension just beneath your skin. Hold for 5- 10 seconds while continuing to breathe (breathing makes the muscle contraction feel more intense), then release. Repeat for a total of five to 15 repetitions. That's one set, and plenty to start with. You can add one or two more sets when this seems easy.
Q: How do I get a torso like Brad Pitt's?
A: Find a mad scientist (try guyswholaughmaniacally.org, if you don't know any personally), have him build a time machine, go back to the spring of 1963, and arrange to be conceived by Mr. and Mrs. Pitt. Then simply follow Brad's diet and workout routine for the next 39 years and you'll have abs just like his. I guarantee this program will work, in fact, it's never failed to produce Brad Pitts.
» Fitness archive
Men's Health Philippines - June 2005 Issue
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You have to figure out how much exercise you can recover from, not how much you can do.
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