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  • What's up, guys?

  • Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.

  • Today I want to give you a beginner workout for abs.

  • Now, the key is that this is not your only workout.

  • I just made a video not long ago when I talked about one of the biggest mistakes you can

  • make when you're trying to lose weight.

  • It's to think that an 'ab only' approach is going to get you there.

  • We know you need to have your nutrition in check in order to do that.

  • However, if for a beginner you can commit to a five-minute workoutor a six minute

  • workout like this one is going to be here, to at least get you going, to start to build

  • that momentumthen it's a good thing.

  • But realize you want to make sure you're transitioning to something greater.

  • That you're starting to work your entire body and not just focusing on the abs.

  • With that being said, there are some key differences between this beginner ab workout and some

  • others that you may have seen because we want to make sure we're training the right way

  • to hit the right functions of the abs, not leaving anything out.

  • So, this will do exactly that.

  • I've got a stopwatch here that we're going to do everything to.

  • So, it makes it very simple to track.

  • So, I'm going to get down here.

  • The very first thing you want to do is something we call a halo.

  • The reason why halos are good is that you're working your lower abs.

  • So, any movement where we take the pelvis and curl it back, up toward the head is going

  • to be initiated with a contraction down from the bottom portion of the abs.

  • So, we want to make sure we start with that because that tends to be the weakest.

  • So, we pick our legs up, and when we're in this position here, now we're going to

  • lift and draw a circle.

  • So, I'm trying to draw circles into the ceiling just like that.

  • So, I lift, I'm drawing a circle, all the way down, and around just like this.

  • This is the circle.

  • Now after 30 seconds I'm going to start reversing direction.

  • So now I'm going to lift and draw circles in the opposite direction.

  • 30 clockwise and 30 counterclockwise.

  • Then what you want to do is start getting your obliques involved now.

  • So, you still want to stay bottom-up because you're most fresh at this point in the workout,

  • but you get the obliques involved by creating some rotation because they run down at an

  • angle.

  • So, what we do here is, now we're going to curl our pelvis off the ground and as we

  • do, twist the butt in one direction.

  • Curl and twist the butt.

  • Curl and twist the butt.

  • Just like that.

  • So, I'm literally lifting my pelvis from here to here.

  • Off the ground, lift, twist, and down.

  • So, no hanging exercises.

  • Hanging exercises tend to be a lot more difficult.

  • We're going straight for the somewhat simpler versions here, but still not negating the

  • principles that I want you to follow here when it comes to training your abs.

  • Great.

  • Now the next thing is what we call a midrange movement.

  • Where we want to train the abs in both directions.

  • Meaning, stability from the top down, and the bottom up.

  • That's where you're working on that entire midrange.

  • This is where plank become a good option.

  • However, if you've seen me talk about planks before I'm not a big fan of them.

  • Why?

  • Because they're just not that challenging.

  • They're not dynamic.

  • They're too static.

  • We can make them a stability exercise, but still have them become more dynamic by adding

  • movement in.

  • We can do that with a pendulum plank reach out.

  • So, we get down in this position here and what we do is by making a pendulum with the

  • lower legs.

  • So, I step out, here, and back, and step out, and back.

  • Out and back.

  • Out and back.

  • That's the bottom portion.

  • But what we do is add the arms in, too.

  • So, I step out, back, out, back.

  • Arm out, and back.

  • Arm out, and back.

  • When I go into this reach position with the arm you can see I've decreased my stability

  • on the floor.

  • I've taken where I've had four limbs down, four points of contact, and made it temporarily

  • three, and even when I put the hand back down, this elongated arm out here has increased

  • the work that the abs have to do.

  • So, I come back in.

  • So, step out, step out, arm out, arm out.

  • Step out, step out, arm out, arm out.

  • And I keep that going for one minute.

  • Each of these exercises so far has been done for one minute.

  • Now, we still want to have that rotation, but this time from the top down.

  • So, what we can do there is an exercise we call the chainsaw.

  • So, you've probably seen scissors before.

  • You lift your torso off the ground, engage the abs, get in this position here, and you

  • just flutter your legs back and forth.

  • For a chainsaw we want to make it more dynamic, so more motion.

  • So, what we do is, we come down, we lift, engage, up, and then what we're doing is

  • rotating our legs and our feet, trying to keep our torso pointing straight ahead, but

  • all of our lower body rotating.

  • Scissor, scissor, scissor, scissor, over there.

  • Come up here a little bit more.

  • So, scissor it and rotate it.

  • You go one minute of these.

  • Now, you rest as needed between these exercises.

  • Depending upon how much of a beginner you are, you might need a little more rest.

  • If you can keep cranking through them, that would be ideal.

  • The less rest time you spend between ab exercises, the better the overall effect.

  • Finally, we do a sit-up-rollup.

  • This is a very important point here.

  • We end with our top down movement.

  • Going from the top toward the bottom.

  • Why?

  • Because we're strongest in that direction.

  • We have more strength in any top down movement.

  • We're going to need it because at this point in the workout we're fatigued.

  • However, you've probably seen a lot of people anchor their feet under something to do a

  • sit-up.

  • When they do, by hooking their feet and pulling up, they're engaging their hip flexors,

  • which has a detrimental effect on the lower back.

  • Especially over time as you accumulate more and more reps.

  • So, what you do is, you find that same surface and instead, you hook your feet beyond.

  • So now when the feet are beyond, and you pull back, you're activating the hamstrings which

  • are on the opposite side of the hip flexors, which can help to decrease the hip flexor

  • activity, therefore decreasing the pulling on the low back.

  • It's a completely opposite effect, but the abs still have the same opportunity to be

  • worked.

  • So, with my feet anchored beyond that point, what I do is keep my arms up here and I curl

  • up.

  • When I'm at the top – a very important key hereyou paint yourself back down.

  • I just covered this in a lower ab weakness video.

  • You want to be able to pain yourself down.

  • Same thing on the way up.

  • You want to unpeel yourself off the ground, one segment at a time.

  • Here, and then on your way back down you engage in a roll down one piece at a time.

  • Roll off one piece at a time, paint yourself back down one vertebra at a time.

  • By engaging, by getting into this flexed trunk you're engaging the abs already.

  • You're disengaging the hip flexors, you're protecting your back, there are no detrimental

  • effects to exercises like this with a sit-up, or ab workouts in general.

  • You complete this here for one minute.

  • So, you see that five exercises for one minute a piece, the idea is if you're beyond a

  • rank beginner, you can do this two times and it will give you about a 10 minute workout.

  • If you are a beginner, start here.

  • Like I said before, I don't care where you're at in terms of rank beginner and this getting

  • you on the ground and actually doing something.

  • That's great.

  • But use it as an impetus to do more.

  • Ab training alone is not going to get you the results you want.

  • Pair it up with good nutrition, pair it up with some good total body training; now you're

  • really going to start seeing the results of your hard work.

  • Guys, I hope you've found the video helpful.

  • If you're looking for more workouts, we have lots of advanced training in our ATHLEANX

  • videos as well.

  • Make sure you check them out.

  • If you're looking for one of those programs you can find them over at ATHLEANX.com.

  • We do have programs scalable to all levels of ability.

  • If you've found the video helpful leave your comments and thumbs up below.

  • Let me know what else you want me to cover and I'll make sure to do that for you.

  • Also, turn on those notifications because you want to make sure you get notified by

  • YouTube when I do put up a new video.

  • All right, guys.

  • See you soon.

What's up, guys?

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