What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.COM.
A couple weeks ago I gave you an ab strength test that you could do at home, and I'll link
it right here if you haven't seen it, that allows you to see how strong your abs were
by testing your ability to raise your leg straight out, all the way from a top position
down to a couple inches off the floor, and then back up again
without ever allowing your low back to arch.
Now I told you you could use your hands to feel where your low back placement was but
not to support your low back.
And some guys tha commented on the video that were suprised how easy it was given that they
thought their abs were weak,
you might have been doing just that.
You might have been digging your hands under your low back and therefore nullifying the
entire integrity of the test.
But even then, even if you pass that with flying colors, you can't really determine
your true ab strength until you do what we do here today.
And that is, we have to test your dynamic ab strength.
We have to test your spontaneous, eccentric ab strength.
Why is that?
Because a reactive core is a strong core.
See, in any athletic endeavor, if you're out on the field and you want to be able to cut
in one direction,
you have to have incredible ab strength to be able to stabilize your body on a dime and
cut and move in another direction.
If your abs are weak, you continue to flow in the direction you're cutting away from,
and that's not good.
And the same thing happens even in a weight room.
If you have an energy leak which we refer to all the time meaning a weak core, the force
that you generate in the Deadlift that's supposed to
pass from your feet and your legs all the way up through your body can be lost.
So, to really develop and test reactive core strength, or spontaneous eccentric ab strength,
you need to be able to do some drills, and I'm going to show you how you can do it here
today with a bouncing med ball.
And you can do 3 progressive versions of this depending upon your current strength level.
So, what you do is, you start here in a reclined ab position.
You hold this bouncing med ball which is 12 pounds.
You need to bounce it to the side and then catch it, ok.
Bounce it to the side, and then catch it.
What we're testing here when I say spontaneous eccentric is, the spontaneous eccentric contraction
of the abs and core in this direction.
When I catch this, it wants to pull me down in that direction.
So, I see that the ball starts to sag after I catch it and i want to catch it up here
at head-height,
then I know that I've got some weakness, ok, that I'm going to need to address.
And we want to test both sides, of course.
But you might see that on the right side, maybe I'd sag even a little bit more than
I do on the left.
And a lot can do with maybe even your past history.
I've had a hernia on my left side that's been operated on.
That could lead to a difference that I see right versus left.
Now, let's say you got that one, that's not a problem.
The next thing that you want to do is take it and make it a little bit more dynamic.
So you bounce and catch, bring it to the center, and then back down.
Now, my legs are off the ground at this point.
So, I'm down, center, and back.Down, center, back.
And again, if I'm weak on this side, when I try to get the ball over here, if I'm already
falling in this direction, I'm not going to be able to really get it up here.
And it's not going to look too pretty.
So, if I can keep it nice and clean because my abs don't have lack of strength, then I'll
make this look nice and sharp, like that.
But if I do this, and I'm all out of sync, it's going to show.
Again, you test left side and right side.
Finally, this is where it gets fun.
Now, I'm going to be a little bit more explosive.
So, what we do now is, we're going to perform a Russian Twist.
You're going to bounce, touch, and try to come back here again and not lose control
of the ball, and also, not really dip too much to one side.
So, you bounce, touch, and then freeze.
Bounce.
Touch.
And freeze.
Ahh.
I was a little far away.
So, that's our Russian Plyo Twist, but it comes in perfectly here as an exercise that
we can use to not just test our reactive core strength, but help build our ab core strength.
And guys, that's what training like an athlete's all about.
If you're looking to get more powerfully strong abs that's functional in any environment,
and I don't care if you don't play sports or not, if you just play the game of life,
you're going to have to have a strong core because it's involved in literally everything
you do,
and I'll help you get that, head to ATHLEANX.COM.
Get our ATHLEANX Training System.
Let me coach you through every one of our ab drills and most every other workout that
we do, and make sure that I'm getting you not just strong, but strong like an athlete.
If you found this video helpful guys,make sure you leave your comments and thumb's up
below.
Whatever else it is that you want to see, leave it here in the comments.
We'll make a video on it.
We're getting you 3 a week.
So I have plenty of opportunities to try to cover what you guys want to see.
Alright, I'll see you back here soon.