Can You Do Your Ab Exercises Twice a Day?

Many people have a hard time building abdominal muscles. They use the "more is better" logic. If one workout is good, two is better, they reason. Gaining an understanding of the principles of bodybuilding and realizing that abdominal muscles are just like any other muscle group is essential to understanding if working abdominal muscles twice a day is a good idea. Work your abdominal muscles hard, but then rest them. Focus on the moments. Reflecting on working out his abs, Tony Horton, P90X co-founder and trainer uttered, "I hate it, but I love it."

How Bodybuilding Works

You lift a weight heavier than you are usually lift. It hurts a bit. You push through the discomfort. You do this eight to ten times in a row. This is how bodybuilding works. You push your muscles a little too hard -- just enough to cause tiny tears in them, but not so hard you injure yourself.

Importance of Rest

In the time between your workouts, your muscles rebuild themselves. Muscles cannot grow if you continue to tear them. You will only cause injury this way. It takes the average person around five to seven days for their muscles to rebuild. Bodybuilders used to working out can recover more quickly than this, however.

Your Abdominal Muscles

There are four major abdominal muscle groups -- the rectus abdominis or "six pack," external obliques or those "side cuts," internal obliques, located just inside your hips, and transverse abdominis, running along the sides to the middle of your abdomen. All of these muscle groups are connected. So, it is almost impossible to work out one group and let the others rest.

Rest between Workouts

When you do push ups, sit ups, crunches and other abdominal exercises, you are using the weight of your own body as resistance. Therefore, working out your abs is considered weight lifting. You cause the abdominal muscles to tear just a tiny bit. Therefore, they need rest to recover and rebuild. Many professional bodybuilders would not work out their abs more than three times a week and this is partly why they have those cut abdominal muscles.

Reasons for Failure

The reason many people become frustrated with lack of progress is because they do not vary the workout. Tony Horton calls this concept, "muscle confusion." If the workout routine is not varied, the body because used to that level of intensity and gains are plateau. It is important to increase the intensity with variety to work out the muscles in a slightly different way. The other main reason you do not get a "six pack" is because you are eating a high fat diet and a layer of fat is covering your ab muscles. Cut down on your dietary fat and increase your protein for maximum results. So, while you can work out your abs twice a day, it will not give you added muscle mass and will actually slow your progress toward building a toned abdominal area.