What's one of the absolute biggest wastes of time in the gym? Ab workouts. It's the typical "six pack ab routines" you see all over social media where you cycle through a bunch of high rep body weight ab exercises for 10 to 15 minutes. Keep in mind that it's not possible to spot reduce fat, and so these six pack ab workouts won't do anything in terms of specifically leaning down your midsection. All they really do is work the abdominal muscles underneath. But since the abs are a muscle just like any other (no different from your chest or quads or biceps), they should be trained for strength and hypertrophy in exactly the same way. That means selecting abdominal exercises where you can apply enough resistance to get within a few reps of failure, taking a proper rest period in between sets and applying progressive overload over time. This will increase the development of your abs, causing them to pop out a bit more noticeably assuming your body fat levels are low enough for them to visible. But just remember that having sufficiently low body fat is the ultimate key to a "defined" midsection, and that is achieved through a calorie deficit rather than ab exercises.
