Exercising your abdominals and lower back is important for physical fitness, but rest time between workouts is just as essential. Most daily activities involve your core, which includes your abdominals and low back. A strong core can improve your balance, stability and make physical activities easier to perform.
Core Exercises
Your core includes your abdominals and low back, as well as muscles in your hips and pelvis. Two different types of muscles make up the core. Muscles responsible for stabilizing respond best to isometric exercises and low-intensity or body-weight exercises for a higher number of repetitions. The muscles responsible for providing movement of the trunk respond best to a heavier weight for a fewer number of repetitions.
Rest Between Sets
The length of time between sets depends on your exercise goals. In general, a greater load and fewer repetitions warrants a longer rest period between sets. Similarly, lighter weight and more repetitions usually requires a shorter rest period.
For example, an exercise with one to two sets of eight to 15 repetitions should be followed by a 30- to 90-second rest period, and an exercise with a heavy resistance for six repetitions should be followed by a rest interval of 1 ½ to 2 minutes, according to the American Council on Exercise.
Rest Between Workouts
Rest is an essential component of an effective exercise program. Your muscles need time to recover and repair themselves after a workout. During recovery time, your muscles repair themselves and build slightly higher levels of strength. As a general rule, avoid exercising the same muscle group on consecutive days.
Tips
As with any strength-training program, progression is key. As your muscles adapt to a certain resistance, it is important to gradually increase the resistance to experience further strength gains.
To ensure you are maximizing your exercise efforts for your abs and lower back, aim to make the last one or two repetitions challenging, yet doable. If you find an exercise is becoming easier to perform, try changing up the exercise or increasing the number of repetitions or number of sets.
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