Day 17! Starts with one of my favorite movements- the straight bar dip. This is an excellent exercise for blasting your pecs, tri's, and even parts of the back, plus it provides a great opportunity to practice the muscle up. The second exercise was the chin up. I definitely had some residual fatigue from the last training session. I wanted 3x19 reps today, and it was WAY harder than it should have been. Honestly, I should have stopped short of this and kept my reps cleaner- this is a good lesson. And, as usual, I finished with some body weight squats for conditioning and leg endurance.
So... How do you get abs? What are the best exercises for abs?
Here is the truth... If you are training hard with compound movements, whether with bodyweight or barbell, your abs will develop as a byproduct of become proficient with those exercises. However, if you have some extra body fat, seeing that development will be nearly impossible. The best way to get your 6 pack is to lean out. Get on a calorie deficit, drop the body fat, and the abs will appear. I'm not saying ab training is worthless- it can certainly enhance ab appearance, but any. muscle built with specialized ab training will be obscured by body fat unless a certain amount of leanness is achieved.
How lean do you need to get? I don't know. Genetics play a HUGE role in this. Some people show nice abs at 15% body fat and others need to be 12% before their abs come in. It all depends on where your body stores body fat.
To sum it up, special ab blasting workouts aren't going to give you a 6 pack if you have extra body fat/. Getting lean is the most important part of getting being able to see your abs. Training the abs can definitely help, but keep in mind that if you are getting really good at pull up and push up variations, your abs are getting hit pretty hard. It mostly comes down to getting lean.