Will Sit-Ups Give You Abs?
Obtaining visible abdominal muscles is often considered the crowning achievement of anyone who takes up exercising. But, unfortunately, it is no easy task; in the United States, you are more likely to be a millionaire than to have visible abs.
Although it may not be easier, lucky for us, obtaining visible abs is far simpler than making seven figures but requires the same dedication.
Getting visible abs comes down to just three things:
Genetics
Everyone is capable of obtaining visible ab muscles with enough time and dedication. However, your genes play a significant role in what those abs look like. Will you have a four-pack, six-pack, or eight-pack? Will you need to be 5%, 10%, or 15% body fat to see them? Those questions will largely be answered by your genes.
On average, you won’t see visible abs at rest until 12% body fat or less for men. Women can see abs at higher body fat percentages as breast and hip size will play a role in total body fat percentage.
Regardless of gender, you likely have either a four or six-pack abs. The number of abdominal bands you have never changes; the most common are three bands, so most people can obtain a six-pack.
I can’t obtain a six-pack, and when I was much younger and unaware of this information, I dropped to 5% body fat and trained abs daily to get a six-pack. It did not work. No matter how much exercise or dieting I did, I still had four abs, but you could see them, which brings us to number two on this list of obtaining visible abs.
Diet
Everyone has abs, and if you lose enough weight, you will see them. Since the only effective way to lose weight is with a healthy diet, this section is the most important.
First, let’s touch on expectations; most people need to maintain a low body fat percentage to see their abs at all. Keeping a low body fat percentage will get more challenging as you age and may require some lifestyle changes.
This article isn’t going to cover in-depth diet information, but if you want to start on the road to visible abs, enter your info into a calorie calculator and start tracking your caloric intake. You should see your abs in no time if you maintain a slight calorie deficit.
When decreasing your total caloric intake, it is vital to eat nutrient-dense foods. Think vegetables, fruit, healthy fats, and protein. Of course, there is nothing wrong with carbohydrates, but pick things like baked potatoes over croissants to keep yourself satiated.
Exercise
In order to obtain some ab muscles that pop, you will have to train. If you lose enough weight, everyone has visible abs, but if you want to have well-defined ab muscles without being malnourished, you need to train your ab muscles to get bigger. And contrary to popular belief, that doesn’t mean doing 1000 sit-ups daily.
Most people train their abs like endurance muscles; they do as many reps as they can of relatively easy exercises. However, if you want a more defined core, you should train your abs like every other muscle.
Challenging exercises for 4-12 reps, with proper resistance. Proper resistance will vary on an individual basis, but the main concept remains the same. It must be challenging enough that you struggle to complete all the sets and reps. If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.
For maximum results, you should perform challenging core exercises in conjunction with heavy resistance total body exercises that also challenge your abs, such as front squats and single-leg RDLs. It is safe to say that CrossFit athletes have some of the most insanely defined abs around, and I can promise you it isn’t from doing 100 sit-ups.
This begs the question and title for this article:
Will sit-ups give you abs?
This is a relatively popular question with a somewhat complex answer. So let me answer a few more direct first questions:
Will sit-ups help you build defined upper abs? Yes.
Will sit-ups alone give you visible abs? No, it will take, at minimum, a proper diet.
So, will sit-ups give you abs?
With a low enough body fat percentage and a few sit-up variations, it is possible to get abs from sit-ups alone.
However, this is far from the path of least resistance. It is easier to maintain a low body fat percentage with more muscle, so a heavy resistance strength training regiment is the most effective way to gain visible abs.
There are several exercises far better for gaining visible abs than sit-ups. There are Deadbugs, Hanging Leg raise, crawling, and hollow body holds, to name a few.
Your abdominal muscles are the largest muscle group in your body, and sit-ups target a relatively small percentage of those muscles. The exercises mentioned above all activate your core more effectively than sit-ups.
Imagine you want to build more muscular legs. You wouldn’t focus all of your efforts on your calves, would you? That is kind of the same thing as sit-ups and your core. The top abdominal band is always the first one you can see in the mirror as you work towards visible abs, and it often becomes the primary target of training.
Instead of focusing your efforts on sit-ups, you could just do push-ups instead. Push-ups are a great upper-body exercise and, when performed correctly, are a moving variation of a plank. When performing a push-up, your goal is to have a tight core that prevents you from dropping your belly or hips, which is enough of a core exercise to help you build visible abs, along with some upper-body muscles.
If you are going to focus your training around one exercise, I wouldn’t choose sit-ups.
I would pick one of these total body exercises that will also help develop your core:
