Crunches?

Can you do crunches everyday?  Is there any benefit from doing them everyday compared to doing them every other day?  Do these muscles need to have a resting day?

Hi Michelle, Abs are just like any other muscle and if you want to make it stronger you work it hard and give it a rest for 48 to 72 hours.  Some believe if you work it everyday you keep the abs tighter and smaller and that's true to a degree because it's being over work, so kept from growing in a muscle growth anyway. I'm kind of in the middle. I think you need the heavy training to make it stronger and I'll rest a day or two after a heavy ab workout, but I like to do some kind of ab work almost everyday as my warmup or on my off day. But it's a lot easier stuff, not really straining on anything, just greasing the groove. Earl

Hi Earl, What type of exercises do you do for your abs?  I have an exercise ball and a total gym.   Michelle

Heavy abs exercises usually on a squat day because squats work my abs hard anyway: Decline Situps w/weight (before my hernia popped out) Hanging leg raises Side Bends with heavy dumbbell 80 - 120 pounds DB in one hand Lying leg raises/reverse crunch twist / sidebends with Olympic bar on shoulders or holding olympic bar overhead walking twist with olympic plate Light exercises: Broom stick sidebends/twists/good mornings Standing abs (hard to explain but like a situp but I'm standing up with a rope hand facing away from a pulley. This is the best warm up exercise there is. I do twists and put my legs in different positons to hit different areas, like feet wide hits the lower abs more (try it with situps) medicine ball throws to floor or wall I'd throw crunches in here too if I didn't have the hernia. Planks That's just some of what I do. I'm changing up all the time.  I actually consider a lot of my ab training is when I'm doing heavy squats without my belt, deadlift, power cleans and any of my overhead lifting. Want to work your abs...hold a barbell over your head and walk or hold 1 dumbbell over your lead and walk. You'll feel it in your abs. Earl