The aesthetic of having a six-pack is sought after by many, no matter what your gender is. Having a six-pack demonstrates discipline as well as looking extremely attractive.
Your abs may not be as big as you want them to be, so many will pursue attempting to grow them so they can be more aesthetically pleasing.
The truth is growing bigger abs takes dedication and discipline. Abs are just like any other muscle on your body, they will grow when you start working them out.
Is It Possible To Grow Bigger Abs?
If you feel like it’s impossible to grow bigger abs, this actually isn’t the case, it’s very possible to grow bigger abs. In 10 weeks of training abs, you can expect an increase in abdominal thickness of around 1.9 to 2.7mm.
The reason why your abs aren’t growing despite actually working out on them could be because you are not doing the right exercises, or you’re overtraining and not giving the muscles time to rest.
Abs are notoriously difficult to develop, and many won’t see abs until they reduce their body fat percentage. So, building bigger abs, and getting the definition you want takes additional discipline.
Training Abs Alone Isn’t Enough
Don’t fall into the trap with thinking all you need to do is work out your abs, and you’ll have super visable abs. This is a misconception which won’t yeald you any results unfortunately.
Having bigger and more defined abs is extremely difficult if you’re not already lean with defined abs.
Working out is a key element, but there’s more, you need to be eating a balanced diet if your bodyfat is too high. You need to ensure you’re getting enough protein to fuel your abs to grow.
Cario is also decent if your bodyfat percentage is too high. Just remember, your abs won’t show if you have a layer of fat covering it.
How Lean Do You Need To Be For Abs?
We first need to define what it means to be lean. Leanness is used to describe an individual that has low bodyfat percentage, and this is important for abs as it helps reveal the abdominal muscles.
To have clear and visable abs, you will need to have a leanness or bodyfat percentage of around 12%. This has two effects. One, it actually reveals your abdominal muscles, and it will prevent your stomach from looking bigger whilst working out your abs.
But as always, it depends on the individual, you may have super visable abs with higher that 12% bodyfat. It’s to do with how the fat around your body is distributed, but the general rule of thumb is to have around 12%.
Hypotrophy Is Key To Growing Abs
Hypotrophy focuses on building upon the size, density and strength of each invdividual muscle fiber, but hypotrophy is only achieved through resistance training.
Planks are a great workout for strengthening your core, but it isn’t a resistance exercise, this means it won’t increase the size of your abs.
This is because you’re not getting the same muscle breakdown and rebuilding that hypotrophy offers. To get this, we recommend some of the exercises recommended below, they utilize weights to add extra intensity.
How To Grow Larger Abs
Growing bigger abs is definitely possible, and one of the best ways to build muscle is to actually use weights. Yep, you can use weighted abs exercises, and they’ve helped me a lot with building definitions in my abs.
Weighted Hanging Leg Raise
The weighted hanging leg raise is an amazing workout you can utilize at home to tone up your abs, and build muscle. To perform this workout, all you need is a pullup bar, and some weights.
It’s a gymnastic movement, and it involved you hanging whilst raising your legs. The addition of weights will actually make the workout more intense and have a bigger effect on building your abs.
Hold a small dumbbell between your feet, and raise it so your legs are parallel to the floor. Keep in mind, this workout is pretty advanced, you first need to master hanging leg raises without weights.
Weighted Russian Twists
Weighted Russian twists are an augmented version of the standard Russian twist workout, and it involves using weights like a medicine ball.
This workout involves you sitting on the floor with your legs up and knees slightly bent. Lean slightly back so your body forms a v shape and you twist your torso side to side, you should start to feel the burn in the abs and the obliques.
Adding a weight like a medicine ball will increase the intensity of the workout, and help build your abdominal muscles faster. This workout is a lot easier than the hanging leg raises workout, and it requires almost no equipment. You can even use water bottles as weights.
Weighted Sit Ups
Keeping it simple, sit ups are a workout almost everyone knows, and they can be done almost everywhere to keep your body in shape and help keep your abs toned.
Adding weights to the sit-up exercise will immediately make the workout harder, it will take building your abs to the next level, and help add size and density to the muscles.
By holding a dumbbell or any other small weight to your chest, and performing standard sit ups is enough to quickly build up intensity, and challenge your abdominal muscles to work harder.
Conclusion
Yes, it is definitely possible to grow/increase the size of your abdominal muscles, this is because your abs are muscles just like your biceps and triceps.
As previously stated, the problem with building abs isn’t that there’s a lack of exercises, the problem is that many people have way too much bodyfat that their abs do not show.
I recommend if you want to build abs, if you’re not already lean, you should work on losing bodyfat by going on a diet, and consuming a good amount of protein. This will help fuel muscles whilst burning bodyfat to help your abs become more defined.
