Q:
I accidentally over trained my obliques and lost my V taper 🙁 I used to have a great one… now it’s practically a straight line right down the sides despite having super lean abs. Once one has built muscle where they don’t want it, how can one lose muscle where one doesn’t want it?
As part of the answer, I’m hoping you’ll address the obvious embedded issue of how to lose muscle there but not everywhere. Secondly, I’m a big fan of plank and I’m up to 7:30 straight iso hold. it’s a fun game I’m playing and really enjoy seeing my progress. Is there a chance that’s making things worse? I’m pretty sure I got the overdeveloped obliques from too many weights decline bench twists (was doing 100 a day there for a long time… has been about 2 months since I stopped). Also, I do anti-rotation chops with cables at they gym here and there.
Thanks G!!
A: Thanks for your question and what a great question. First of all, I am glad you got int ouch with this questions now before you continued to build your core, especially in your obliques. Secondly, I have a feeling that your V tapper is still amazing but you are focusing on your core and not allowing yourself to see that amazing V tapper anymore. I want to note one thing first, as your body improves in certain areas, you constantly have to re evaluate things and be sure that things are improving at the same rate. For example, what once was a strong body part can suddenly become a weaker body part if you put less emphasis on it, during your training (because it is so strong) and focus on other parts. Or if you continue to train all body parts equally and genetically you have stronger body parts than others, guess what will happen, you will constantly have inbalances because the strong body parts are getting stronger and the weaker body parts are getting better but still not balancing with your strong parts. For example, say you have big biceps and small shoulders. You want your shoulders to improve so you train them heavy and in a way that you are going to see gains in your shoulders. You continue to train your biceps too.. what happens, Yes, your shoulder improve but so do your biceps so what are you left with, the same situation… improved shoulders but in relation to your biceps, still weak… My suggestion is to always access your physique and see what needs to be improved. If something needs to come up, focus on that body part, leaving the stronger parts to rest until things are all caught up and balanced so your physique can continue to grow at the same rate!
Back to your situation, I highly suggest not using weight to train your obliques. I never suggest using weights to train any part of your obliques because what happens, you build muscle and therefore, thickness and widen your waist, which is what we DON’T want. You want to keep a tiny waist and any weight, if at all, used on your core should only be for your rectus abdiminus (mid abs) to build their density. In your situation, you may have increased your thickness to your obliques and therefore, yes, making your v-tapper appear disappear or become less pronounced.
Wow, a 7:30 plank! That is crazy! I think that is awesome that you can hold it for that long but honestly think that is a bit much and unnecessary! Remember my less is more theory! That could very well be not helping your thickness issue because you are using your core for stabilization. I think more than the plank, all the oblique bench twists with weight is truly where the problem stemmed. You grew muscle in those obliques, definitely, by doing all that weighted work. My suggestion is to lay off ALL oblique training (weight or NO weight) I would also just really lay off too much core work. While doing other exercises, you are constantly using your core and therefore working those muscles. In a regular program, I believe 2-3 days MAX of core work is plenty. Absolutely no weighted or ANY twisting movements for you. You can continue to train your V-tapper by training lats 2x/week to bring back out your v-tapper that you once had. What you have to do is increase that V-tapper to make that waistline appear small again. You can do it. Just lay off the oblique training and never do weighted work and increase lat training to increase that v-tapper. Great questions and keep me posted on your progress! Glad you got in touch!