- ♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ the two most famous ♪
♪ physical therapists ♪
♪ on the internet. ♪
- Hi folks
I'm Bob Shrupp physical therapist.
And this is Brad Heinek physical therapist.
And together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
In our opinion of course.
For those of you who are familiar with this channel
normally Brad and I do these videos together
but Brad was not able to make it today
so we're, I'm gonna forge ahead alone.
By the way this is an old picture of us.
I think I look the same but, Brad, look at that.
He's really, his hair's really gotten a little bit gray.
So. all right I'll get rid of this.
The subject today
is I'm gonna do
10 abdominal exercises for beginners.
And then at the end I'm gonna show three exercises,
abdominal exercises you should never do.
They're really hard on your back.
So these initial ones
for the most part are easy on your back.
But if they do bother your back
I don't want you doing them. All right?
So, but they are designed to be for most people
they're gonna be fine.
So, let's start off with number one.
This is the one that most people know.
It's just a simple crunch.
They call it.
You're gonna lay on your back with your feet up.
And what I want you to do is make sure
you're doing this correct though.
'cause a lot of people go like this.
They'll grab behind the head and they'll go like this.
I want you just to kind of go up.
You're gonna bring the head up that way.
And it really a good thing to do
so that you're not pulling on your neck
or rounding your back is to maybe
just take your fingers and put 'em on your temples.
Believe it or not.
And just lift up like this.
It's just a place for you to put your hands.
and so they're not causing trouble.
So go, you can go up, hold
hold for 10 seconds.
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
and then go down.
So very simple.
I'm gonna let you decide
how many of these you wannna do.
It's good to do a lot of these different exercises
in a row 'cause you'll get that cumulative effect
and you really start to get the burn in the abdomen.
All right the next one
is just a little variation off of that.
Then instead of coming up straight with the head like this
you're gonna turn a little bit
'cause you're gonna get some of the obliques here.
You're gonna bring the elbow up
and it's almost like you're gonna come up straight
but you're going towards that knee.
So you're coming up like this 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
And then you could switch, put over to that knee.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
And again, reverse 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
Now it looks like I'm not doing much there, but believe me
it's working and especially if you're a beginner
it's a great one to start off with.
All right, let's go to number three
and number three is in the same position
but you, it's very easy to do, you can put your arms down
if you're really quite a beginner.
All you're gonna do is bring the legs
up like this and you're gonna do what we call toe taps.
So you can do this and you can do a good 30 of these.
If you know, even when you start off here.
The thing you wanna make sure with this type of exercise
is that you're flattening your back against
the table or the support or whatever you're using.
I don't want you arching up like this.
And that's gonna be the tendency
because it's very,
the muscles are working really hard
and they sometimes don't have enough strength
to hold you down flat like this.
If I show you on the spine...
Sorry for coming out of the picture there for a second.
But your pelvis, you know
if you arch this way, I'm arching this way.
Now I'm flattening out like that.
Sorry, Loni.
I told her that I won't be standing up
and now I'm standing up.
Okay. So when I'm on the mat, if I put my hand under here
you're actually trying to squish the hand.
You're flattening out your back against it.
So, I think I've stated that enough.
All right, the next one we're gonna do is a side crunch.
This is one I like to do.
Just it's easy to do.
I'm gonna do it on this side,
'cause I don't wanna get my mic.
So, you're gonna lay on your side like this
and you're gonna put your, what is good to do
is actually you put your hand like right here
and you're gonna lift up like this.
And I actually put this hand here.
Again, not pulling on the neck,
but just in the right position.
Can even put it on the temple.
And you're gonna lift up like this.
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Really gets the obliques. Really works it well.
And it's not that hard to do.
I mean, you can start off on a lower end here.
I just I really like that one and I really.
And of course you're gonna wanna do it on both sides
so you even out.
Or as Brad likes to say, "So you don't walk in a circle."
See Brad I can still do your jokes
even when you're not here.
All right, next one we're gonna do is flutters.
Now I've noticed with these, I've been a little bit shocked
that my hamstrings are tighter than I thought.
I stretch my hamstrings every day
but I'm not able to do this
with my legs completely straight for all the way up.
It seems like they kind of bend a little bit.
But, what you can start with is with your hands
even underneath your butt to make these a little easier.
And what you're gonna do is you're doing flutters like this.
And if that's too hard
you can even go a little smaller range like this.
But, if you start to get better
you can put your hands back here.
And that makes it a little bit harder yet.
Again, length of these.
I do, I just count to 35 when I do these.
I don't know why.
It just seems like when I hit 35
I'm really starting to hurt.
And that's usually when I stop.
So those are flutters.
Again, pick out the ones you like
and do those and eliminate the ones you don't like.
That's just as simple as it can get.
All right, the next one is what we call the dead bug.
And what you're gonna be doing is
moving your arms like this.
And then at the same time, you're moving your legs.
So, you're going like this.
So, you're getting a good core workout
and you're working the upper and lower abdominals.
And you look silly to be honest with you on that one
but it actually is a good one to do.
Again, I do like 35.
I like to pick to the point where I just seem to
start to really fatigue and then I stop at that point.
All right.
Yeah. I'm gonna flip over onto my stomach now
for a couple here.
All right.
This one is, again, I'm assuming that as a beginner
this is gonna be a little more difficult for you.
So you can just start off with a plank like this
And then to make it a little harder
if you start, this starts to get too easy
you can actually go up to your feet
and you can actually go back and forth.
This actually is a little bit difficult.
Believe it or not.
It's to me it's harder than
just doing a plank. Just holding like this.
And it's a good alternative for someone who's a beginner
because they can start off with a knee
and then go to the toes and then, and then back and forth.
All right, where am I at now.
Oh, raise up to the sides.
On this one again you're gonna get on your knees
and you're on your side like this
and you're gonna go ahead and just raise up like this.
Now this one, interestingly enough,
Brad has spondylolisthesis and this one bothers him.
He says any
well actually any of the plank exercises bother him.
But I think in most instances, people with back pain
this wouldn't be a problem.
And you really start to feel it right here
in the obliques.
Works out really well for that.
And again, you're gonna want to even things out.
Trying to catch my breath here.
and I'm gonna go to the other side.
mkay?
The next one, it's what we call mountain climbers.
I'm gonna do a, like a modified version of this.
This is one that
a lot of people,
I mean, you can, you can do it actually.
I'm just gonna do it like this.
You're gonna bend up your arms like this
and you're gonna go ahead and bend forward like this.
You can also do 'em like this.
But again, I like, I just like the
this is a little bit easier to do
and you can even do a few like these in a row
and you can get a little more of a burn that way.
Am I staying straight, Loni?
Okay.
Felt like I was getting a little crooked there.
All right.
The last one.
This one isn't that difficult either.
You're just gonna get yourself in this position here
and you can just go ahead and do some leg lifts like this.
Good one for working on the core.
And yet you're getting some abdominal
lower abdominal work out there too.
All right.
So those are the 10.
Now, let's discuss the ones that you should never do.
And as much as this information is out there
I still see people doing this.
In fact, I was watching a video
of somebody else doing abdominal exercises
and she actually had recommend one of these
and I was really shocked, so.
Whew!
All right the three.
First one is I never want you doing full sit ups.
I mean, what you don't realize is this position right here..
There was a scientist called Nachemson
and he measured the stress on your back
and the discs when your back is
in this position and kind of loaded,
which it is right now.
compressing and the forces were unbelievable.
It's really hard on your back.
So you never want to do full sit ups like this,
and you certainly never wanna do where
you take actually extra weight.
Which I've seen some people do.
Put weight on here and lift up like this.
Very, very hard on your back.
Now, if you wanna make it worse
then you actually do a full sit up to the opposite knee
like this.
Bending and twisting
puts even more stress on your discs.
So that's really gonna tear up your discs.
Gonna make them...
You know, if you wanna have back pain
that is a thing you want to try.
Is go ahead and go up to this knee
and then go up to this knee.
The other one.
The third one that I don't want you doing is
I see people they actually,
I can't even do these to some extent
but, they're doing stuff like this.
They're moving their arms and legs
with their back in this bent position.
I don't care how straight your back is
it's still putting a huge amount of stress on the back.
So, avoid those three at all costs.
And even the other ones, if they bother you, make sure that
you know, there's plenty of other ones to try.
Don't do any that hurt your back.
All right, Brad will be back on the next video.
Thanks for watching.