Poor Advice

Is it irritating to anybody else just how much people tend to give advice on diets and exercise plans when they don't know what they are talking about? For example, I read from somebody's personal site this statement almost verbatim: Just treat your ab muscles like you would any other muscle group. You wouldn't do 100 bicep curls so don't do 100 crunches. Okay, the obvious problem with that statement is that when you do a bicep curl you're lifting lots of weight. A crunch only lifts however much weight is on your head and upper body. Its the equivalent of a bicep curl while holding nothing. They are two totally different exercises. It seems to me that more and more people are attempting to make a basic analysis of the human biology and are consistently failing. Fortunately for me I did well enough in AP bio that I can see when certain advice is just plain stupid. Regardless it is still annoying and I wanted to know if it bothered anybody else.

Here's the thing... the ab muscles are still muscles. If you are going to work them, then you need to let them rest. Just like every other muscle.

The real point of that person's statement should have been this:

If you can do 100 of ANYTHING (crunches, bicep curls), make them hard enough so that you can only do 3 sets of 12 (or less). Crunches can be made harder by doing them on a decline and holding a weight to your chest. And then let them rest, just like you would after doing 3 sets of 12 of squats, deadlifts, etc.  Never mind that there are far better ways to strengthen your core than damn crunches (and better ways to strengthen your arms than bicep curls).

The problem with the statement isn't that abs don't need rest, it's that suggestion that doing 100 crunches will be at all useful.

the person was kind of right.

if you wanted big biceps, you wouldnt do 100 reps with no weight.

you do 3x10 or something with weights.

you should do the same for abs.

if you can do 3x15 of abs with no weight, then add some weights.

weighted crunches are annoying (with big weights), but there are better alternatives