Dr. Andy Galpin

And there's various different models for that.

There's also been, there's actually a series of classic direct Pilates studies.

There's been studies in normative obese core population, or normative weight, sorry, obese population.

populations and foam rollers.

And this is kind of like weird combination of research.

But if you smash it all together, you're going to see, again, on average, about a 10 to 20% increase in muscle thickness.

So I know the core can grow.

And what you'll see across these studies that are all six to eight to 12 weeks, and whether you're using MRIs or ultrasounds is

When you do the right training principles, these muscles grow just like everything else.

And right training principles here is defined as...

not hundreds or thousands of repetitions, not daily, but more traditional muscle hypertrophy programming styles.

So that's the state of the research.

Now, I've never focused my career on aesthetics.

I don't coach bodybuilders or fitness competitors and never really have, but I personally am of the opinion based upon the evidence that we currently have, that if the primary goal here is good looking abs, I would recommend choosing a roughly 50-50 split-ish

between those big, complicated, complex movements and the isolated ones.

I think this gives you the ability to load them properly, to maximize the size principle, to get force production done and drive mechanical tension.

This is the primary driver of muscle hypertrophy.

It also allows you to keep the volume down directly on your core and your spine.

At the same time, I would incorporate a lot of these isolation exercises because of the opposite.

Your legs and your arms might be already tired from something else.