What's going on Nation? And welcome back to my dumbest mistake
Series if you missed my last video where I went over the six dumbest burpie mistakes
Sabotaging your gains be sure to go down in that info section below and check it out, but for today's video
we're going to be covering the four dumbest mistakes for one of my
Absolute favorite exercises for building thick and blocky abs and that is the ab pulldown
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Let's get started with those ab pulldown mistakes alright guys
So the first mistake is not properly
Adjusting the pulley before you get started with the movement and this can be two different ways number one
if you have the pulley too high
Depending on the cable machine that you're working on
It's very possible for the weight stack to smash into the top of the machine half way through the movement. It's happened to me
I'm sure it's happened to you guys
It makes a really loud noise, and you look kind of ridiculous
And you can't get a full crunch so being too high is not good and the opposite holds true as well if you go
Too low even a little bit, too
Low it really starts to change the range of motion of the movement and how the weight is pulling on your torso
Remember the entire point of this exercise is you want to overload your abs as much as possible?
so if you have the pulley even a little bit too low in
Order to get a proper crunch in you've got to start moving farther and farther away from the pulley the pulley itself
Which is gonna change how you hold the box and how you do the crunch?
So you'll still get a stretch in your abs you'll still be able to
Come all the way down
but you'll quickly notice that you won't be able to lift as much weight and
Like I said that defeats the purpose of the exercise or trying to overload our app so the proper placement for this pulley
Is to actually bring it to about the same height as your head
Maybe a little bit taller because what you want to do is be able to get almost directly underneath the pulley
Because that's gonna place you in the strongest position to lift the most amount of weight
And I'll show you what I mean real quick you get into position like this
I like to hold the attachment behind my head and then once you're in place. We were able to come all the way up
Do a full crunch and come back up and really overload those abs
Mistake number two is actually the wrong placement of the by attachment. I briefly just talked about that on mistake number one
When you perform this movement the way you want to hold this bah is
Directly behind your head and almost having it rest across your neck right here, and I'll explain to you
Why I see a lot of people in my gym
When they do this movement what they actually do is they get into position
But instead of holding this by behind their head
They'd like to hold their arms out in front of them like this now as soon as you start to hold this out in front
Of you like that you're gonna instantly start to feel your biceps getting engaged your shoulders getting engaged your lats are stretched out
so your lats are getting engaged and
Because of the angle you're gonna have to grip this thing much hotter in order to hold on to it
So that's gonna cause some forearm fatigue
So you're basically getting a lot of upper body fatigue before you even get in place to do your first repetition?
And then the second issue is if your arms are out in front of you like this
You're not gonna be able to get a full crunch at the bottom of the movement because what's gonna happen is as you come down
your elbows are gonna hit the ground before you're able to come all the way in so if you're coming up like this and
Coming down your elbows hit the ground and you might think that's full range of motion
but what needs to happen is you actually need to come all the way in
Like this, so having outstretched arms like that is gonna cause a lot of upper body fatigue
And you're elbows hitting the ground is gonna prevent you from doing full range of motion now the way you want to do this exercise
To prevent the most amount of upper body fatigue and to get the maximum range of motion is
Grab it the same way, but hold it directly behind your head and firmly against your neck so just like this
Now once you're in place like this, you can even almost
What trick that I like to do is I'll even bring my elbows under my head like that, and I'll lock them into place
So almost looks like you're choking yourself. You're not choking yourself, but it looks like you're choking yourself
And from here. This is actually still a bit too light for me
It's pulling me forward there we go and then from here what you can do
is lock it in come all the way up and
Then you can easily crunch all the way down like this on every single repetition, and you're not gonna fatigue out
before you finish and should go without saying guys if
You're legging it like this you can't get your elbows in between and get a full crunch
So make sure your legs are spread out quite a bit
so as you do the crunch your elbows can get between your legs and you can get a height of
Contraction at the bottom and I know some of you guys are gonna ask about using
Maybe a rope attachment or two handles to do this movement
You can use these things but in my experience the only way to really get the most
Upper body fatigue out of the Movement is to use a by attachment like this or a straight bauer
Attachment if you use the ropes you still got to grip that thing pretty hard in order to hold it in place
same thing with the individual handles and also too if
You start to get forearm fatigue because if you hold this against your neck usually it takes everything out of the equation
but you still
Can get some pretty intense for I'm fatigued if that happens to you at?
Least with a straight bar you could put on some wrist straps wrap it around and do your reps like that
And then you don't have to worry about your forearms at all the third mistake is not crunching properly
Chances are that if you've done this exercise
And you felled it more on your hip flexors then your abs so you decided to take this out of your workout routine?
It's because you weren't doing an actual torso crunch which what you have to do in order for this exercise to be effective
What tends to happen to a lot of people especially as they start to increase the weight is
form kind of goes out the window because mentally
You still think you're doing a crunch, but in reality?
What the movement looks like is this you're coming up, and you're sitting as you do your reps
and if you're sitting as you're doing reps
You're definitely going to feel those hip flexors
Firing a lot more than you're gonna feel those abs firing so in order to maximize the efficiency of this movement
What you need to understand is that your glutes and your abs are?
Synergistic muscle groups and your hip flexors are
Antagonist ik so if you want to take the hip flexors completely out of the movement something that you can do to help is
Flex your glutes to hold you in place as you're flexing and crunching your abs on every single repetition
So you'll look something more like this your hips are gonna stay in one place
You're gonna make sure that you maximize the stretch by arching your back at the top of the movement
And you're gonna make sure you maximize the contraction by going into spinal flexion at the bottom so flex those glutes flex your abs
all the way down like this flick keep flexing those glutes keep flexing your abs and
Hold that as you go up and down and as you can see
the only thing moving is my torso and
I'm maximizing the stretch in the abs by going into
spinal extension at the top as much as I can and I'm
maximizing the crunch by going into spinal flexion and getting my elbows as far down as I possibly can and
The fourth and final mistake guys is not utilizing a spotter. This is my absolute favorite
Exercise to punish my abs to the point where I'm forcing them to grow because you can overload them with so much weight
However once your course that's to become really strong
You are gonna get to a point to where you can do the entire stack, and you're gonna be pinning more weight to it
But by the time that happens the stack might start to get heavier than how much you weigh and so then what starts to happen
Is as you try to do your repetitions, you're fighting
Or so your body lifting off the ground
Then trying to focus on performing proper form by doing the full stretch and the full crunch
throughout every single repetition
So what you need to do is try to find a spotter to come over and stand on your feet and if you're looking for
a good time at the gym
Nothing is more funny to me than asking somebody for a spot and then
Bringing them over to a cable machine and being like alright, so this is what's gonna happen. I'm Gonna
Go down like this, and you're gonna stand on my feet while I do these repetitions
Their face is priceless guys, but I can assure you
So many more people at my gym do this exercise?
And we'll spot each other
Because they had never done it before
They saw me doing it or I asked them to spot me and they realize the benefits of the movement and how you can't actually
Overload your abs with it
And how much better of an exercise it is when someone does stand on your feet like if you have a really hard time
not
Moving your hips back and forward like we talked about earlier in a video
And you start to get a lot more hip flexor engagement?
Even if you're not using super heavy weight if you invite a Spa to come over and stand on your feet
It'll make it a hundred times easier for you guys to learn proper form and just focus on the extension in
Flexion on every single repetition now if you don't have access to someone to spot you
I mean you can try
to whip something up with some dumbbells or maybe your barbell or maybe there's a machine close by you can kind of
Anchor your feet into that
But I mean the easiest way to do it the most effective way to do
It is just to have someone stand on your feet
So if you're shy it might stink the first few times
But I guarantee you you will find someone to spot you and they'll want to try the exercise as well
So don't be shy when it comes to building blocky abs and overloading with as much whey as possible especially on this exercise
You have to go outside your comfort zone and just ask somebody to stand on your feet all right guys so that wraps up today's
Video the four dumbest mistakes and performing the ab pulldown, but I want you to keep in mind that other mistakes
I've talked about when it comes to doing abdominal crunches in general still apply to this movement as well for example
I talked about breathing out as you do the crunch and flex your abs on every single repetition
so if you missed my video where I talked about the three reasons why you will never have abs
Make sure you go down to info section below click the link and watch that really quick cuz I'm sure it'll be really
helpful to you for your ab training in general as
For sets in reps what I like to do is switch it up from week to week
so for example week one what I will do is four to five sets and
Train with as heavyweight as I can for around fifteen repetitions and then for the week two
What I'll do is train with as heavy as I can four to five sets
But this time I'm trying to get thirty to forty repetitions
So I have to use the lighter weight, but I'm going to be doing a lot more volume for me
This has been how I've always trained my abs and how I've been able to actually build out block e
Abs that stick out versus having abs but more of a flat core
I like the blocky abs I like the block you look so that's how I train
So if you're trying to get that as well
You want your abs to pop a bit more and have deeper cuts in the middle on the sides this can help you too
But I will say no matter what I still do this ab exercise first no matter what week
It is mainly because you can do the most amount of weight with it
And you want to save all your energy for the exercise
You're doing first, so you can maximize the efficiency of the movement also guys
I train my abs two to three times a week
Training frequency is totally up to you it depends on you know how much you want to train your abs your abs recover quite quickly
Then one of the muscle groups that can take you know a really massive beating and recover from that so
Training two to three times a week isn't out of the question
So if it's an area you really want to focus on and you really want to develop take my advice
Alternate the weeks with heavy weight and light weight and hit those abs two or three times a week
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And be sure to also let me know what you guys want to see for the next dumbest mistake series by posting your exercise
suggestions down in that comment section below and as always
More good stuff coming soon. See you guys