There is very little difference between exercises which build ab muscles and those which simply tones.  Sometimes they are the same exercises.  This is also not usually the case, but some people prefer to use the same exercises and that is okay too.  The thing to remember is that, it doesn't matter which exercise you do to tone abs.  The best ones for toning abs to be whole body cardio exercises which are really not abs exercises at all.

 

Example :- when I'm building abs, I would do only 3 sets of 15 floor crunches using weights on my chest to increase intensity.  When going for muscle tone, I would do 5 sets of 20 to 30 crunches with no weights. 

 

Toning abs routines tend to have more cardio types of exercises. These routines are designed primarily to burn the fat tissues between your skin and the underlying abs muscles.  In fact, it is actually the whole body that you will lose fat in, and not just the abdominal areas. No such thing as fat spot reduction folks.

 

You will find that the same exercises are involved although in different variations. Reps and sets will also be different because of the focus on low intensity but high reps.

 

Normally when you tone any muscle groups including abs, those muscles should already have existed, otherwise what is there for you to tone right ? Just common sense.

 

So before you look at toning abs, you have to have some ab muscles first.

 

If you haven't got any ab muscles, have a look at some of our programs here on our website and choose the one that you like best. 

 

For building abs, focus on using exercises that we have covered like the crunches, reverse crunches, leg raises and v-sits. Crunches using a medicine ball are highly effective because the movements allows your abdominals to be stressed to the max, and stressed fast.  This explains why you wouldn't be able to perform on the ball, the same number of reps that you do on the floor.  It's just not possible.

 

Toning abs should be the last stage of your training.  Toning helps remove any layers of fat between your skin and your muscles, resulting in increased muscle definition.  Toning abs workouts are also different in that you will be doing more repetitions, aiming at less than maximum intensity, and doing more aerobics training.

 

To recap, a program designed for toning abs will have more exercises per muscle group, twice as many or more reps per exercise, decreased intensity, and more aerobics based exercises.  Keep the intensity low and try not to do any high intensity body building work while you are training for abs muscle tone.