HERE WE GO – with the 1 exercise NEVER to do…
But doing any type of spinal flexion (crunch) can be harmful to your low
back because this will compress the disks in your spine especially where you end up by almost putting your head between your legs.
In fact, Dr. Stuart McGill, the world’s expert on low-back injuries
and abdominal training, said in a recent New York Times article,
“…no sit-ups, they place devastating loads on the disks.”
The disks in your spine are the same disks that get herniated in
low back injury. And moves like sit-ups essentially CRUSH the
disks between the bones in your spine, causing terrible pain and
nerve damage.
So STOP doing crunches and sit-ups!
Fortunately, you can still get six-pack abs and a flat, sexy
stomach by using back-friendly ab exercises instead.
So let’s review a huge list of abdominal exercise substitutions:
1) Replace crunches with:
Planks, mountain climbers, and stability ball jack-knives
2) Replace cross-crunches (i.e. twisting or oblique crunches) with:
Side planks and cross-body mountain climbers
3) Replace sit-ups with:
Stability ball jack-knives, stability ball planks, stability ball
pikes, stability ball rollouts, and hanging knee raises.
Now let’s take a look at how we can make some of these back-friendly
ab exercises even harder for your abs:
1) How to increase the difficulty of the Plank
First of all, before you move on from the plank, you have to
master it.
Dr. McGill says that we should all be able to do a plank for 2
minutes straight.
You can also do push up-planks, as those will help prepare you for
pushups if you are a beginner.
Eventually you will graduate to the Stability Ball Plank, which is
30% harder for your abs than regular planks.
2) Harder versions of the Side Plank
Advanced versions include the Side Plank with Leg Raise and Side
Plank with DB Lateral Raise (allowing you to train your shoulders
at the same time). Dr. McGill adds that we should be able to do a
side plank for 90 seconds straight.
3) Mountain Climbers substitutions
You can use the Spiderman Climb exercise as a replacement, and this
is excellent for lower-body and hip mobility.
A harder version of mountain climbers is the Cross-Body Mountain
Climber, and you can also do mountain climbers with your hands on
the ball or with your hands on the floor and feet on the ball.
One of my favourite advanced versions is the “Hands on the Floor,
Feet on the Ball Cross-body Mountain Climber”.
Stability Ball NOTE:
if you don’t have a ball, you need to get one. They are cheap, and
I’m not asking you to do any dangerous circus tricks on them!
But if you don’t have a ball, you can replace the Stability Ball
Plank with the Mountain Climber exercise, but it will not be as
difficult.
4) How to increase the difficulty of the Stability Ball Jack-knife
Eventually you’ll progress to the Stability Ball Pike. And another
way to do this exercise is using the TRX straps. That is one of the
exercises that gets improved by the TRX. Very effective movement.
But even with the ball you can step up your training by using this
exercise.
5) The Stability Ball Pike
This is another exercise improved by using the TRX, as well as a
cool toy I bought called the Power Wheel. The key to the exercise
is raising your hips up as high as possible, and again, using the
Power Wheel or TRX allows you to do that better.
6) Alternatives for the Stability Ball Rollout
If you are new to this exercise, you can use a modified Roll-out, just not going all the way to parrarle.Just go to where your you are comfortable.
Plus, you can substitute an ab wheel in place of the ball or you
can even use the TRX in a similar type of movement. It works
because you are fighting the extension of your torso.
Stretch your abs on the way out, and contract your abs to return to
the starting position. This movement will leave your abs quite sore
if it is a new exercise for you!
7) Additional Advanced Abs Exercises
Once you’ve dominated all of these Stability Ball exercises, you
can move to traditional advanced ab exercises of Hanging Knee
Ups and Hanging Leg Raises.
However, you should only do these exercises if you can fully
ELIMINATE momentum from the exercise. Do NOT swing your hips or
rock back and forth.
8] Pushes That Workout Your Abs
you should also understand that a LOT of traditional exercises work
your abs and slight variations of traditional moves can work your
abs very hard.
For example, some of the best pushes for abs include:
* Elevated Pushups
* T-Push up
* Spiderman Pushups
* Decline Spiderman Pushups
*Plank push-up
9) Pulling Exercises that work your abs
A while back, I trained a fit woman who had never
done a chin-up before. So I had her do 2-3 sets of
3-5 repetitions.
She came back the next session and couldn’t believe how sore her
abs was from this exercise. So again, you will get a lot of ab
work from traditional movements. In addition to the chin-up, here
are my favourite “total body pulling muscle ab exercises”.
* DB Renegade Row
(Start in press-up position with your hands on dumbbells and feet wide, row one dumbbell back towards your hip while maintaining a flat back)
* Pull-ups
* Chin-ups/Pull-ups with kneeups
* Spiderman Pull-ups
Use those to make your workouts more efficient.
10) Shoulder/Arm Exercises
YES, you can use shoulder and arm exercises to work your abs. Any
time you do a standing exercise, you’ll need to brace your abs HARD
in order to maintain a stiff torso. That works your abs as hard as
planks and side planks.
Plus, in the triceps extension exercise, you are stretching your
abs as you lower the weight and contracting your abs as you
contract your triceps to return the dumbbells or bar to the start
position. I’ve had super-sore abs just from doing triceps!
So here are my favourite upper body exercises for abs:
* 1-Arm Press
* 1-Arm Curl
* DB Triceps Extension
Hope you enjoyed that massive list of ab exercise substitutions!
Just say NO to crunches, and No to rubbish food because we no where that goes!!!!
