As you go about setting up your abdominal workout program to get eight pack abs, you may start to wonder how long these workouts should take.
You’ve often heard the statement that your weight workouts in the gym should preferably be under 60 minutes total, but where does that leave your ab workouts? How long should those last to be effective?
In order to better address this question, there are a few things that you need to look at. Let’s go over what these are right now so that you can learn for yourself how long your optimal ab workout should be.
Your Primary Goal
The very first thing that you’ll want to think about is what your primary goal is when going about your ab workouts to get a eight pack. If you’re primary focused on building up stronger and larger abs, then you’re going to want to be doing some weighted abdominal work in the session and this will demand longer rest breaks between sets.
The more downtime you spend resting, the more time it’s going to take you to complete that session.
If your primary goal is just maintaining your physical fitness and losing fat however, then you’ll want to aim to move from exercise to exercise as fast as you possibly can, which means that your ab sessions will be quite a bit shorter.
Those seeking muscle gain will likely devote 15 minutes while those seeking fat loss should be fine with 5-10 minute workouts.
Your Exercise Selection
The second thing that you’ll want to take note of is your exercise selection. If you’re doing a lot of targeted ab movements such as exercises for the obliques, exercises for the lower abs, and so on, you’ll need to have more overall ab exercises in the plan, driving up the total workout time you’ll require.
If you’re just targeting the core in general and performing good ‘total ab muscle exercises’ such as the plank and the prone ball roll in, then you’ll need less time overall for that session.
When You’re Doing Your Ab Workouts
Finally, you’ll also want to factor in when you’re doing these ab workouts. If you’re doing your ab workouts at the tail end of your weight workout, the ab muscles will already be partially fatigued from every other weight lifting exercise you’ve completed, meaning that you’ll need to do fewer exercises total to bring them to a point of fatigue.
If you’re doing an ab workout on its own however, then more exercises will be needed, justifying the longer workout length.
So there you have the main factors to keep in mind regarding how long your ab workouts should last. Keep these in mind and you can be sure you’re on track to success.
