There's no way in hell we're getting this
video done man, she's ridiculous.
What's up guys, Jeff Cavaliere, Athleanx.com.
Today I'm going to show you the eight worst AB exercises ever, as in I don't want
to do these anymore. But don't worry, I'm not going to leave you hanging, I'm going
to give you the alternatives I want you to do instead. But because we're going to
cover those mistakes--welcome, Jesse.
Oh, I got to do the dumb stuff again?
Of course. And you haven't really concentrated on either what I've said, or Jesse said to
this point, because we've been staring here. This is Daisy, my new Labrador retriever puppy.
And guess what? Even she knows these AB exercises suck. That being said, I want to make sure you
don't make the same mistakes that Jessie is, so let's start breaking down one by one.
And we start right off with one of the most popular ab exercises out there that I've been
a very vocal supporter of and that's the basic plank. And my reasoning is just that it's too
damn basic. If you can hold the plank for more than one minute, then you need to move on to
something a lot more challenging because there's no benefit to be had here, because it is too easy.
There's a lot of things we can do that take this position to the next level where it is capable of
actually doing something beneficial for you.
Try an RKC Plank for example. What you do here is
you involve more muscles in the plant to make it more difficult and rewarding. You initiate with
the glute and quad co-contraction tightening your legs as hard as you possibly can, making the
core become engaged to a level you've never felt before. And to increase the difficulty even more,
you keep those elbows out of your body to increase the impact it has on your core. But you want to
go even further than that and you want to involve some weights, you've got some options here, too.
And the first is something called the Three Point Plank Row by placing just one arm on the bench
and the other one in the air with a dumbbell, you've decreased the overall base of support.
You don't have four limbs on the ground anymore, you've just got that three. Notice that my hips
never change, they stay locked in position without losing the stability that I'm looking for.
Then finally we have the Twisting Barbell Plank, which takes this to another dimension.
In other words, not just challenging you into anti-extension, but your ability to
control and prevent rotation. Remember, guys, it's not always about the motion that
you create when you're challenging your abs, it's about the motion that you could prevent
when we take it to that next level.
Nothing says I'm stuck in the 80s
more with my ab exercise routine, then this exercise number two, and it's the
Dumbbell Side Bend. It's just not a good option if you're trying to train your obliques. And let's
not even talk about the fact that people will do these either with two dumbbells at one time, in
which they turn themselves into a human seesaw or they're actually doing them for spot reduction
of their love handles. In neither case will that actually happen. Because my problem here
is you're asking for something that your body doesn't want to give you, and that is an
excessive amount of lateral trunk flexion.
Your lumbar spine is not meant or designed to
do this, especially when you combine it with the fact that you've got a heavy weight or at
least a moderately heavy dumbbell in your hands. The fact is there's a better alternative and it
doesn't require any equipment at all. And it's a simple Side Plank Lift. You can see that when I
lift myself up the side that I'm actually training is the underside, the bottom side there that's
looking for that lateral pillar strength. And when I lower myself back down,
what does it look like I'm doing? If you turn your head sideways, it actually
looks like a side bend right down on the ground. But because we're doing this in this way, guys, I
have much more control of that frontal plane as it was originally intended. The fact is, guys, it's
not always the motion that's the problem it's how you're performing it and more importantly,
how you're performing it, that turns this emotion into something that's not productive.
For exercise number three, I'm not trying to pick a fight with CrossFit, but they're the ones who
have been credited with the invention of this exercise. And they managed to take one of the best
machines in the gym, the Glute Ham Raise and make, one of the worst AB exercise you can ever do the
GHD sit up. Now, if you look at this exercise here, guys, you can see right off the bat this
is a one-way trip to the chiropractor. Your back is not going to like you if you do this exercise.
You were never intended to do this hyperextension, especially against the full weight of gravity,
because this is a very heavily weighted exercise, half of your body weight being lifted
up on every single repetition.
And again, depending upon the pivot
point and where you place yourself on this, because a lot of people don't
understand where to place themself on this, you get a real shearing force placed on your
lumbar spine, it's not something you want. So how could you achieve the same degree of
anti-extension challenge without having to do this? Well, you can just stay on the floor
and get the same benefit. And we have a simple Roll-Up. And even if you have no weight in your
hand at all by extending your arms up overhead, you're increasing the moment arm on the Abs and
you're making the exercise more difficult. And all you're trying to do is simply allow yourself to
come up, but more importantly, protect that spine on the way down. You're not hyperextending, you're
trying to flex it one segment at a time.
And if you have the ability to you add a dumbbell
to the exercise to add additional weight. Again, we can start to mimic some of that challenge of
the weight of your upper torso of the GHD set up by doing it with a dumbbell in our hands
on the Roll-Up. And if you have even greater desire to increase the challenge, hold that
dumbbell on one side, which is now going to not only challenge the anti-extension strength, but
also the anti-rotational strength that you need to develop as well. Any of these exercises are
going to be way better than this one right here and get back to using this for what it was meant
for in the first place, a Glute Ham Raise.
Now exercise number four may come as a surprise
to a lot of people that watch my channel, but this one right here. Straight Leg Raises. Now
look, I have a lot of variations of exercises that utilize Straight Leg Raising because it gives me
the opportunity to weight the exercise, the weight of your legs is a good overload. That being said,
if you can't handle the weight of your own legs, then any variation of a leg race is
going to become problematic for you because of what it does to your low back. You
see, lifting strictly with your hip flexors and not being able to control the descent of
the legs back down to the ground because you don't have ab strength is going to
pull your back into hyperextension as those hip flexors yank on your lower vertebrae
every time you lower them down to the ground.
If you have to use your hands to get yourself up
there, you should be doing this exercise in the first place because you don't have adequate ab
strength to do it. Don't use your hands to push into the ground, use them instead to check
to make sure you're doing exercise right. Place them to the side of you, right alongside
your lower back, and try to drag them inward, not pushing down. Because if at any point in
time I arch my back and my hands are able to actually move inward and slide towards each
other, that I know that I disengage the abs and I've introduced a stress to my spine that I
don't want to have. So again, do any variation of a leg raise as long as you have the strength to do
it and if you don't skip it, at least for now.
Which brings us to exercise
number five, and that is the--
May I interrupt this video with a public
service announcement from Daisy.
For crying out loud guys, if you're looking to
take your ab work to the next level, you want to add some weight, please do me a favor and look
to somewhere other than your pet for resistance. And before you even say it, the pandemic and
limited access to gym equipment are no excuse for using man's best friend as man's worst dumbbell.
And for those that insist on doing this because the views are too good not to, let me ask you why
I always reach for the little puppy or kitten when you can create a real challenge and overload, but
reaching for the big dog once in a while. Or would that actually screw things up by feeling like too
much of a workout. That's what I thought. So do me a favor and stick with what you should be using in
the first place, weights and let your pet admire your six pack obsession from the sidelines.
So, exercise number six is the first of two that are actually on the list for the same reason. And
that is it's not actually the exercise that's bad, it's the fact that 95% of the time when people
perform this exercise, they don't do it right, which makes it a really bad exercise. This is
called the Russian Twist. Well, actually, this is it called the Russian Twist, because there's
no twisting going on here. Look, simply tapping your hands back and forth across your body,
while it may give you the illusion that you're doing something, is actually not doing anything.
Instead, what you want to do is turn that Russian Tap into a Russian Twist by actually twisting.
So, the best way to do this is to focus on moving the ball and your shoulders at the same time. If
the ball goes to the right, the shoulders will, too. If the ball goes to the left, the shoulders
will too. Then and only then will you actually be getting the benefits of a Russian Twist.
And then and only then are you going to turn this exercise that's performed all the time
and to one that's actually worth doing.
Which brings us to exercise number seven.
If the Russian Twist was the most commonly performed exercise because of the lack of
actually rotating, then this is the second most commonly performed and this is the Bicycle
Crunch. And again, it's not the exercise here, but it's how you're doing it. Because if you
look like this and a lot of people do, you're not really getting much benefit from the exercise.
You're actually just turning this into one single isometric hold with a bunch of elbow flips back
and forth. We're not trying to flip elbows, guys, we're trying to rotate, and to rotate, you're
going to have to actually turn your torso.
So once again, what I do here is now I try
to fix my elbows in place and not move them across the midline anymore. The only way to get
them across my body is to actually rotate my shoulders to do it. And if you lock your arms in
place and twist, guys, twist back and forth here, you turn this from an isometric into an actual
exercise that's going to benefit you.
Which leads me to the last exercise, and
this is a big one, guys, because it's any ab exercise that you do where you're
not actually concentrating and prioritizing how you're doing the movement in terms of the
quality of the contraction. Stop counting reps and instead make the reps count. When it comes
to abs guys, that's all that matters. So, if you were to do, let's say, a Hanging Leg Raise like
this and you look like this when you're doing it, I can guarantee you're not getting anything
out of it. Because you might be impressed by racking up a higher rep total, but I'm not
impressed by a single one of these reps.
Instead, slow it down and get something out of it,
even if it means doing 15 less repetitions. So, in this example here, you would actually focus on
pulling the pelvis up and under. You want somebody in front of you to be able to see your butt, not
just the top of your kneecaps. But it doesn't stop here because on the Ab Role Out we have the same
problem. This is another one of those exercises that people will claim higher rep counts as some
sort of an achievement, but they're not doing them right. Instead of going back and forth into hip
flexion, sitting back on your heels and shooting your body out with every single repetition,
you want to focus this on the abs. So, go slow, lock in your hips. Don't move them
beyond the point that you start from.
And same thing even on this exercise here, guys,
you're not trying to just sit back to your heels. You're trying to use your abs to perform
it. Remember, if you're looking to make anything worthwhile, the old adage of something
is better than nothing just isn't true. Because if the something you're doing is
the wrong thing, then you're going to get nothing from your hard work.
So, there you have it, guys, the eight ab exercises I don't want to do anymore,
but more importantly, the eight that I do. If you found the video helpful, make sure you
leave your comments and thumbs up below. Also, if you're looking for step by step programs, guys,
you can find them over at Athleanx.com. And if you like the video guys, you want to see more,
make sure you click, subscribe and turn on your notifications so you're never missing a video when
we put one out. All right guys, see you soon.
Can I have my dog back please Jesse?
Do I have to?
You're hijacking her for crying out loud.
Oh, coming on she's so cute.
I know she is.
Ohh.
Leave her alone.
Wait.
