When it comes to doing cardio and training abs, I frequently get asked “how many days of the week should I train abs?” or “How long should I do cardio for?”. When it comes to doing cardio, I recommend to lift first and then do your cardio, or do a fasted cardio session in the morning. This Is going to help prevent future injuries, also you should put your focus on your lifts first because you want to use the nutrients from food as energy during your lifts then burn fat stored in the body. Cardio will help push you further Into a deficit but lifting Is going to help make It so you burn more calories all day long. 

Now there are multiple different ways to do cardio and depending on someone's goal, some spend more days than others doing cardio. I personally like to be active on a daily basis so my form of cardio would be going on walks, hikes, riding a bike etc for about 30 mins to an hour long. This helps to keep my steps for the day at a high count and helps me to burn more calories throughout the day. So, for beginners i recommend you get more active and do cardio at least 3x a week for about 30 mins and this can be any form of cardio, this will help to stimulate your metabolism. 

Training Abs is a very controversial topic in the fitness industry many would say that they do not train abs and many would say that they do. When it comes to showing your abs it significantly has to do with your diet and body fat percentage. Just training abs alone with no sort of diet will not work, it will make them stronger of course but in order to have the visibility factor of your abs you will need to start dieting better.

I do in fact believe in training your abs, many will argue that abs can be trained during core compound lifts such as squats, bench, military presses, etc. which is also true. But there are many benefits when it comes to training your core. Why you should work on your core before your workouts and in general. 

1. Helps with your stability during your workouts and improves your posture
2. Stronger the core the more force can be applied to a barbell! 
3. You can increase your rep count on heavier lifts and also smash some PR’s! 
4. It will help to prevent injuries such as lower back pain. 
5. Allows for a firmer waistline especially when dieting down. 

When I train my abs I like to do a 5-10min circuit of many different basic ab exercises such as planks, leg raises, side crunches, side leg raises, and regular crunches. All the exercises are done with my body weight and I do this every couple days.