Hi Everyone:

I'm thinking of changing my Ab workouts to my cardio days, mostly b/c my UBW and LBWs are still taking me too long.

I think the exercises themselves are slowing me down (they often take me over 1 minute) plus any exercises that use barbells slow me down too b/c it takes time to remove and load the weights.

Anyway, does anyone do this? I'm thinking of alternating each ab workout between obliques and rectus abdominis to give me a more thorough ab workout. Would that be wrong? Or would I be better just sticking to the same routine I use now?

Also, I'm thinking of adding pushups into my routine. I'm not sure how to go about it. It seems like a good exercise to do for upper body strength, but I don't think I could use it for my compound exercise. What are people's thoughts?

OK, one last question, I promise! Does anyone find it difficult to go to failure on LBWs? The burn seems to get me before I can reach failure. But my legs always hurt after a workout more than my upper body does and I'm able to reach failure for UB.

Thanks for any feedback!

Wanda

Doing abs with cardio is part of an 'officially modified' BFL plan (this is where ab bootcamp fits into BFL). A lot of us do this - it's just more convenient.

Pushups are an excellent exercise - I've used them to prefatique going into a workout (although not BFL). I'd do 3 sets to failure with 1 minute rest between sets, wait 5 minutes then do my chest / bicep workout or my back / tricep workout.

Re the LBWO, are you underestimating your strength? The legs do get more work on a daily basis and it takes more to get them to hit that wall, unlike UBWO (especially for us women). 90% of the time I cannot get my calves to hurt at all. Do you have a spotter when you workout?

N

Hi Nat:


That's good to hear. I'll re-read the ab bootcamp article.


Oh God, why did I post this? My masochism is showing through. OK, so I'll do this before my UBW. It's something I've always had a hard time doing so I'd like to add it into my program. LOL, maybe I can poke my eye out with a sharp stick while I'm at it.


No, unfortunately I don't have a spotter. I'm trying to recruit DH. I'm probably not working myself hard enough b/c the burn gets in the way. How do you work past the burn? Is that just psychological? Although I'm not fatigued, I don't think I can do another rep b/c the burn hurts too bad. I get the worst burn in my calves that causes me to limp for a bit immediately afterwards.

But this doesn't happen in my UB. I go to fatigue without the burn. Does that make sense?

Thanks as always Nat!

Wanda

Snort! I actually laughed out loud when I read this - thanks. (good thing I wasn't also chugging water)

The burn is lactic acid build up and it only lasts for a few minutes. If you stop and rest (breathing deeply will help it pass faster - it's due to a lack of oxygen to the cells) you will be able to resume the exercise. It doesn't happen with the upper body because you're able to lift to failure quicker. I remember reading a post over at ABC explaining that the goal of weight lifting was not how much you could lift, but how quickly you could get to (positive) failure - the faster the better. The weights are lighter for upper body as the muscles are much smaller and we (women) tend to be pretty weak, so hitting failure isn't difficult.

There are tricks to working the muscle harder with less weight - using drop sets, emphasizing the eccentric portion of the exercise (the negative part, usually where you are lowering the weight), forced reps, cheat reps. Here's a little more of a detailed explanation from my old gym log.

Stay away from those sharp sticks, will yah?

Nat

p.s. There's a Lactic Acid thread in the BFL hot links thread

I find changing weights on the barbells is how I spend the 1 min between sets. The only problem is when someone else in the gym either doesn't remove thier weights, or takes all the plates of a certain weight to one side of the gym and hordes them :P

As for changing your ab rutine, I think regularly alternating exercises is a good thing. It targets muscles in different ways and keeps things from getting boring. Pushups sound great for arms. You might also look at pullups. I started doing some assisted pull ups to finish off my biceps. The stretch it gives the whole body in the hanging position feels great, and if the machine has different bars, you can work different parts of your upper body.

Hi Nat:

Oh, another snorter in our midst. DH thinks it's so "unbecoming" when I start snorting. (snort, snort) I'll try to keep all sharp objects out of reach.

Thanks for the link to your journal. Before my workout yesterday (just after posting this thread), I re-read Hussman's info and followed his instructions about static contractions. That worked well. I'll have to play around with these options you've given me as well. I've always just done a rest pause.

Thanks for the lactic acid thread too. I read it last week via one of your other posts on the exercise forum. It's very interesting. I always thought lactic acid and DOMS were the same thing. I guess there are tradeoffs between lactic acid and strength. I read this article on lactic acid that I found interesting. Just when I thought maybe I could take supps to help reduce lactic acid, now I'm thinking maybe not. What do you think of the article?

Lactic Acid

Ladybelle, it takes me FOREVER to fiddle with the clips for my barbells. I'm workin' on the forearm strength. Luckily, there's only me so I don't have to worry about "runaway" plates. Ohhhhhh, assisted pullups. I used to love that machine at my gym. The downside of a home gym.

Wanda