The abdominals is one of the most misunderstood muscles in the body. A lot of people
do exercises for the abs that don t make any sense from a science standpoint. Here s
how to REALLY build your abs.

Tim Ernst covered this pretty well already. So I m going to talk more about the science
of training the abs.

Anatomy

The abdominals originate on the front of the ribs and inserts onto the pelvis.

When the abs contract, they pull their origin point and their insertion point closer
together, which causes spinal flexion.

So, the function of the abs is spinal flexion. Or, bending your spine forward.

To train a muscle, you have to apply resistance to its function.

Therefore, any good ab exercise will require spinal flexion against resistance.

How do you apply resistance to spinal flexion?

You need the resistance to come from a 45 degree angle above your head. IF the direction is coming from directly down (like with a leg raise, which is not a very good
exercise), then the resistance will not be applied to the abdominals through much of the
exercise performance.

Literally, the only way to apply that line of resistance is with a cable.

Learn More: How Line of Resistance Can Help You Build Muscle.

A cable crunch is the BEST ab exercise you can do from an anatomical and biomechanics
standpoint.

This is the line of resistance you need to aim for when you use a cable crunch,

What does the research say?

Unfortunately, there isn t any research on the cable crunch. However, there is research
that displays higher ab activity when both the upper and lower body are involved in the
exercise.

So how do we add a lower body component to the cable crunch?

We do the exercise standing up. So,

Research + Anatomy + Biomechanics = Standing Cable Crunch with a 45 degree angle
of resistance being the best ab exercise out there.

How many reps should you do?

The research says you should use higher reps (10 15).

That is based on the abs displaying a higher portion of type 1 muscle fibers. Type 1
muscle fibers take a greater amount of time to become fatigued. So, you have to use
longer sets (i.e. high amounts of reps) to stress the fibers properly.

Full story:
https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-start-working-out-to-get-abs

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* Origin: The Hobby Line! BBS (999:1/1)