Why Won't My Abs Show?

I hear it all the time -- "I have been working out my abs for so long now. Why have I hardly seen 

any improvements?"

The truth is that there is not just one answer to this question. There are a lot of factors that go into

 abdominal muscle development and visibility.

I'm going to outline the most common reasons why active people feel like they just can't get any 

definition in their abs. Hopefully if you are struggling with this challenge, this will help you to 

understand what may be going on and how to possibly overcome it.

1. Your diet sucks

You have probably heard this before, but that's because this is the #1 reason why people can spend 

hours at the gym and still never see their abs. Even if you are eating a clean diet, if you are eating 

more calories than your body burns every day, those excess calories will turn into fat. If your diet 

does not match your efforts in the gym, fix that. Eat at a maintenance level or slightly decrease your

 caloric intake for a few weeks to lean down. You just might have awesome abs underneath it all. 

Please note that it is not healthy for the average woman to have shredded abs all year long, as 

that often means that her body fat percentage is too low for healthy function. I don't shoot for 

shredded abs year-round, I just like to have a toned core.

2. You aren't working out your core properly

If you're spending most of your time working out your upper abs, you probably aren't going to see 

much change. Your abdominal muscles are just like every other muscle group in your body: You 

need to hit them from as many angles as possible to actually see development. Great exercises to 

engage your entire core are leg raises, planks, and side bridges. Make sure that your core exercise 

routine targets your abs from multiple angles.

3. Genetics

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but genetics play a huge part in your core development. Many 

people have lopsided or staggered abdominal muscles. Others may have more separation between the 

abdominal muscles, which makes it look like their abs are more toned even when they rarely do 

isolated abdominal exercises.

Staggered

On the other hand, some people may have less of a gap between each abdominal muscle, which 

means that those lines that make up a six pack are not as visible, no matter how strong and dense 

your abs are. This is less common, but I have seen it before on more than one occasion. People with 

abdominal muscles like this have flat, toned stomachs, but can never seem to get that chiseled six-pack.

Another common genetic reason to not see your abs is that you carry most of your fat in your 

abdomen. If you are a moderately low body fat percentage, work out your core from every angle on a 

regular basis, and eat a healthy diet without an excess of calories, you still may be carrying a bit of 

fat right across those ab muscles if that's where your body likes to carry it. Unfortunately, there's not 

much you can do in this situation, but continuing to build and tone your abs may help to keep your 

core looking as toned as possible.

This is a tricky one because everyone's body metabolizes and holds fat differently, so you need to use 

your own intuition and knowledge about your own body to decipher whether or not this is your issue.

4. You aren't working hard enough

Sometimes I see people at the gym who lay down a mat, do 10 reps of 3 different ab exercises, and 

leave. You wouldn't go to the gym just to run for five minutes on the treadmill and then leave. Why? 

Because it would be a waste of time and you wouldn't get anything out of it. So why do we do this 

with our ab workouts? I work my abs out twice a week, performing at least 3 different exercises for 

3-5 sets of 10-15 reps (depending on the exercise). This is my minimum amount of training for my 

core.

5. You aren't doing compound exercises

Especially if you are a beginner at the gym, you may not know that half of your abdominal exercise 

has nothing to do with crunches, planks, etc. There are these beautiful things called compound 

exercises, and they recruit multiple muscle groups in your body, including your abs. These are some 

of the best exercises you could do for your body to build strength and tone up. Some examples of 

these include barbell squats, deadlifts, lunges, pull-ups, and bench presses. 

Example: Here are the muscles that are used during a barbell squat. (via ke-fitness.com)

The commonality among all of these exercises is that the core needs to be engaged -- in other words, 

your abs need to be flexed to stabilize your body. This is why I never do ab isolation exercises on leg 

days because my leg days are full of compound exercises where my abs are being worked out 

already. If you are doing a lot of isolation ab exercises but aren't working out the rest of your body 

using compound movements, perhaps you need to add them into your workout regimen. They are 

good for your whole body, anyway.