Hey, what's up guys? I'm Scott from muscularstrength.com
today I want to share with you guys one ab exercise
I wish I never skipped and it's not so much that I skipped the actual movement
It's just that I never realized I could have made the movement
so much more intense to get such better gains
and there's nothing worse than
Missing out on gains just because you didn't know how to maximize a movement.
This is this is YouTube gold guys
I wish when I was a kid, I could watch my own videos
I would get so much better results, but YouTube didn't exist
then we won't go there anyways,
so guys the exercise in question is the reverse crunch and I've talked about the reverse crunch a lot
We're trying to place a bit more emphasis on the lower abs when it comes to ABS training guys
Yes, every movement you do will train the entire
rectus abdominus
but there are movements that you can do to place more emphasis on the upper
abs and more emphasis on the lower abs and where
a lot of us are always trying get that nice V taper want this area nice and tight.
This is one of those movements so
Doing a reverse crunch with proper form looks like this you lay down on the ground
You can put your hands behind your head
You can put them on your side whatever you want to do
but basically you keep your lower back flat on the ground and then you bring your knees in and
Then you go back out and this is a reverse crunch
and you can make the exercise more intense by not letting your heels touch
The ground than every rep and if you want
to you can also put on some ankle weights or hold a dumbbell between your legs
But what if I were to tell you?
you can make the exercise even more intense without ankle weights
or without holding a dumbbell and the way you do that is
like this you want to be in front of a solid structure and then once you're in front of a solid structure
You're gonna take a band and you're gonna wrap it around
Okay, and this is where things get interesting and I want you guys to try this at the gym today
It's gonna change your life. You're gonna be like, holy crap. The engagement is out of this world
So again, this is an ab exercise that I do quite often to be honest
But now that I know how to make it more intense. I'm getting a lot more out of it
So now instead of just doing this with my lower body
I can actually pull on the band and by pulling on the band
I'm actually gonna be able to create a
Pre flex in my ABS because in order to hold the band here
I have to start engaging my core
now a few things are gonna happen when you pull out a band and this is what makes the core start to engage a
bit more as I'm pulling on it the tension wants to pull my upper body like this and put me into spinal extension
so by fighting the spinal extension and
Forcing my lower back to the ground
I'm creating this pre flex that I'm talking about and you can feel it right away guys
usually when you do when you do a reverse crunch and you're in this position
You won't feel a lot of tension in your abs
You'll feel kind of a little bit of tension
but if you get into this position
And then pull on a band all of a sudden those ABS are lighting up like a Christmas tree
So once in this position guys, you're gonna focus on keeping your lower back on the ground
Don't let your body go into spinal extension and then you get to bring your feet all the way forward again
Keeping your back flat as much as possible and then bring them back in. So you're doing the same range of motion
You're not letting your heels touch the ground, but because we have this pre flexed
It's gonna be a lot harder for us to keep our lower back flat the entire time
Now what happens when you go into extension and do this movement?
Well, this actually brings a lot of hip flexors into play. And for those of you guys who have lower back problems
It can be due to
Exercises like this where you're actually engaged in the hip flexors
and causing some tightness that you don't want
So if you want to keep all the focus on the ABS, make sure that lower back stays flat the entire time. So guys
To take your training to the next level doesn't always necessarily mean you have to find new
crazy exercises that no one's ever heard of
you can take a simple movement like a reverse crunch and then hold on to a band and
Get a pre flex in those abs and then take your gains to a whole new level
So guys if you enjoyed the video be sure to smash that like button
Subscribe if you haven't already and as always more good stuff coming soon. See you guys