Hey, guys!
Amy Jo here with ATHLEANXX for Women, and today I’m going to bring you some tips about
the wrong ways to train your abdominals and give you some tips on the right way to train
your abdominals.
All right, let’s do it!
I have trainer Miranda here helping me, acting as a client.
She’s going to demonstrate a few of the wrong ways and the tips that I want to correct.
It’s really good for all you visual learners to see it on someone because there are a few
things you really want to do right.
If you want the most bang for your buck out of your core exercises, listen closely.
This decline bench, as you can see, you’ll see a lot of people doing reverse crunches
on the bench.
When they’re doing them, they’re arching their back when they lower their feet.
So, feet up, and then she’s going to lower her legs, and arch her back up.
Big no-no.
Never want to have the ‘hole’, the ‘tunnel’.
You want your low back pressed flat against the bench and then you want to leg raise.
So, if she’s going to – leg raise up – now right here, that low back usually tends to
pop up.
So she’s going to make sure she keeps her low back flat, and then raises them up again.
As she’s doing that she’s making sure she’s pulling up with the core, and not
her back muscles.
Well, her hip flexor muscles.
The other correction you can do to make these more effective is bend your knees.
A lot of you, this might be too challenging.
Then you would have your knees bent, your heels as close to the glutes as possible,
and then you’re just going to tuck in, and roll up.
Then she’s going to lower her heels and her legs.
Therefore, her back stays flat.
A lot of times it’s not that you couldn’t lower your back, it’s just that your abs
aren’t strong enough yet.
They aren’t developed enough.
So, bend your knees.
That way it takes off a lot of the pressure and you can perform the exercise properly.
This can also be done if you’re laying on the floor as well.
The other thing, too – I’m going to have Miranda sit up.
Before you’re doing any ab exercises you want to first focus on vacuuming in the core.
This is my next tip.
Before you’re doing any exercises, you can feel your stomach engage, and suck in.
It’s almost like you’re sucking your abs in.
You can do it when you’re driving, when you’re seated at work, when you’re at
home watching television.
But it’s almost thinking – here’s your spine, here’s your belly button, you’re
pulling them in as close as possible.
That’s the visual.
Before you’re going to engage and do any core exercise you want to pull in, vacuum
in the abs, and then begin the exercise.
This ensures that you hit your transverse and your rectus abdominus at the same time,
and you’re getting the most bang for your buck out of your core exercises.
The next one is – I’m going to show you an exercise on the mat.
So, Miranda, lay on your back.
This one is crunches.
We see crunches a lot and I don’t think they’re the best exercise out there for
your core.
I think there are a lot of other ones.
But this is also an area where people are using their hip flexors way too much.
I’m going to show you – okay, put your hands over your head and let’s do a full
crunch.
You see how she sits up?
This is the proper way.
So, let’s do it with the hip flexors and show what that would look like, with the hip
flexors.
And up.
So now she’s hunching forward.
You’re hunching forward, and you’re going to use your hip flexors a lot more than if
you elongate your core, and focus on pulling the abs in.
Okay, so let’s do the wrong way one more time.
It’s a hunch and you’ll feel your hip flexors being used.
Then the proper way.
One rep on the proper.
Posture up.
You see how she comes all the way up and extends?
Once again, she’s vacuumed in, even before she started that exercise, and now she’s
contracting her abs.
The other thing is making sure you’re not going too high rep, or too high in volume
when you’re doing core exercises.
When you do them properly you don’t have to do that many.
If you’re squeezing and contracting, if you’re starting with the vacuum at the beginning,
if you’re adding weight because you’re more of an advanced exerciser, you don’t
have to go to 50.
You don’t have to go to 100.
Sure, it’s maybe a fun challenge to throw that in, but if you’re looking for the most
effective way, shorten your volume, shorten your reps, and focus on contractions, and
form first.
I guarantee you’ll get a much better workout.
Thanks, Miranda.
Leave us a comment below, thumbs up.
If you guys have any other tips, any other questions about if your back hurts on an exercise,
or ways to do an exercise better, let us know.
We’d love to hear from you and we want to know about what you guys want to hear.
Thanks for joining us.
I’m Amy Jo.
We’ll see you next time.
Bye.