What's up guys, Jeff Cavaliere, Athleanx.com. So today I'm going to show you something that
you can do every day. As a matter of fact, best in the morning, that's going to guaranteed help
you to flatten your lower belly. Now, here it is, you ready? Eat less every day than what you burn
off? That's it. Done over video done. Actually, I got a lot more to show you than that. The fact is,
though, when it does come to getting a defined midsection, that becomes a body fat issue and
heavy nutrition in check is going to be the number one determinant of getting your body fat levels
down. However, what I'm going to show you here today will work no matter what your body fat level
is right now, because we're talking more about a muscle dysfunction than we are about anything else
and we're talking about the transverse abdominis. So, we break out the muscle marker here to show
you what we're talking about. This muscle actually uniquely runs this way, okay? It doesn't run this
way like the six pack muscles do, it runs this way and it goes all the way around our back. And what
happens when a muscle contracts? It shortens. So, we're thinking about how that muscle contracts,
I've used this description before, it does that. When it contracts and this is in its
loosened state, when it contracts, it tightens up. You can do the same thing for your waist
and particularly down here in the lower belly and lower abdomen if you train this muscle.
And just like a muscle that is untrained, it's usually going to go to its length in state. So,
if we think about the muscles in our upper back, when we don't train them, they become
more lengthened in a relaxed state and that makes our posture become more forward, really rounded
shoulders, slumping upper back. The same thing happens here a lack of tone in the transverse
abdominis is going to create a distended lower abdomen. Again, no matter what level,
I'm going to show you and prove to you in a second here how it works on any body fat level.
So, what we need to do is something called a vacuum. Now, you don't have to be an all time,
Mr. Olympia, to pull this off. You just have to be able to do this consistently and you can do it in
less than a minute every single day. It's easiest to do in this position here leaning forward so,
I think it's a perfect thing to do right when you get up in the morning off your bed and I'm
going to show you how to do it when you stand up, because you need a little bit more control. The
idea is, can we shrink this down, get control of this so that we can feel it contracting. If
you do this right, you're going to probably feel like a cramp right around the bottom
here. Again, anybody at that level, you can activate this muscle. So, the goal is this.
I'll explain it first and I'll do it because it's hard to talk when you're doing it.
You want to take a huge deep breath in and then expel it all out. All out. And when you find that
you have nothing left in your lungs at that point, you then will easily be able to create
this reverse pressure, this vacuum back where you could pull your abdomen in. When you do,
it's going to demand that this transverse abdominis does exactly this. It does that. And
when it does that again, you'll feel it almost like a cramp in here, but you just want to be
able to hold it. It will be difficult to talk at this point because if you've done it properly,
you've gotten rid of all the air in your lungs. So, part of this exercise is actually learning
how to hold your breath for longer and longer periods of time. I'm happy with even just five to
ten seconds in the beginning and do it in terms of repetitions, three or four, and you're done.
As you can hold it for longer and longer, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, you'll get better
and better control here and it will become easier for you to do this. You wouldn't obviously try to
hold it for much longer than that. And by the way, you will be able to start incorporating
some breaths as you get better at this so you can hold it for longer periods of time. So,
here's what it looks like. All right. I'm going to do it actually first standing and then I'll
show you how to do it here. So, again, I'll start with a big, deep breath and then I'll
blow out. Once it's out, I'm going to pull it, try to pull my bellybutton back towards my back,
just like this. And through that, and again, I can feel it cramping right here. Now,
I actually had some issues with this a while back when I had an inguinal hernia. Being able
to be consciously aware of doing this was causing some pain because I was pushing down on the area
that I that I was herniated. When I got that taken care of, I had to sort of readdress this and that
is just showing you once again that if you pay attention to it, it could actually benefit you.
If you don't pay attention to it, you're not going to do it. There's no other way to train
this muscle than to actively try to do it. So, if we do it against, let's say, the side of a bed,
it's just easier for people who don't have a real ability to contract this muscle to do it
from this position. So, what I would do is I just get here like this and the same thing applies,
going to take a big deep breath and expel it all out and then pull up. So, it looks like this.
And breathe out. So if you do this every morning,
maximum a minute is going to help you immensely. Just it's not about having to do a lot of volume
here, it's just the consistency of training this muscle and alerting it that you have the ability
to contract it. If you don't consciously address this, you're never going to get the benefits of
this muscle. And again, here's someone doing it that doesn't look as lean as me. But the fact is
you're still seeing that noticeable decrease in the waistline. We're talking about a conscious
contraction. If you don't feel something inside you doing that, having that shrinking effect
there, then you're not getting this muscle here to do its job and that's what we're focused on.
I hope you guys found this video helpful. Make sure you leave your comments and thumbs up. Let
me know how it's working for you as you do it. In the meantime, if you're looking for programs
where all the things matter, we actually have a brand-new program called Core4 because the core
is made up of more than just the abs. I know they're the area a lot of people focus on,
but the obliques, the transverse, the low back, it all works together. That program's over at
Athleanx.com. In the meantime, if you found the video helpful leave your comments and thumbs up
below. Let me know what else you want me to cover and I'll do my best to do that for in
the days and weeks ahead. If you haven't already done so, click subscribe and turn
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