5 Tips For Great Abs

My tips for building the best abs in the business and maintaining them year round:1) We all know the most important factor in having abs is low bodyfat. In addition it is how you get that low bodyfat that is crucial to sustainable conditioning. If you follow a protocol that goes to extreme measures such as low calorie diets and excess cardio you will get lean but your success will be short lived. Ever wonder why some competitors blow up after a show and some stay lean year round? Ask them about their protocol. The ones that blow up after shows more than likely went very low calorie, did tons of cardio and in many cases used cutting drugs. The problem with all of this is that it is not sustainable. Doing anything to extreme will result in an equally extreme rebound. In addition once you come off those cutting drugs your metabolic rate is going to slow to a crawl and you will gain weight at an alarming rate.. The answer is to follow a healthy sustainable protocol that gets you slow progress. When you slowly get lean not having to eat like a bird, not doing an hour of cardio everyday, your success will be easily sustainable as long as you are consistent. Stick to HIIT cardio: Hill sprints, sled pushes, plyos. In addition sprinting on a treadmill is not sprinting because the belt moves for you. How many times have you seen someone post “I did 10 sprints 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off” 30 seconds??? Really? You are the best athlete in the world? Usain Bolt has discussed numerous times that he cannot run the 200 meter dash flatout cause he would die down the straight away. Those people saying they sprint for 30 seconds, I guarantee if you put them on a track they could not run 2×100 meter sprints at full speed. Real sprints are way harder when the automated belt isn’t moving for you. The only way to simulate real leg drive on a treadmill is to jack the incline up to 7-8%. Do that at let me know how long you can sprint for 🏽2) One of the major factors in the deep separation between my abs has been years of squatting without a belt. Forcing my core to constantly engage to support the heavy weights.3) Performing quality reps: I see so many people do fast crunches and fast sit-ups. Your abs are no different than the rest of your muscles. If you do shitty fast curls, shitty fast presses, you are going to have a sloppy look because you are not focusing on the contraction. Next time you do sit-ups, crunches or decline bench sit-ups, try do each rep with a slow 3 second eccentric motion, and a slow 3 second concentric motion. Those sloppy sets of 30 you used to do will now have you burnt out by 10 reps.4) Once you have mastered #3, try blowing all of your air out of your lungs to compress the abdomen before you crunch or sit-up. It’s ok joke!!5) Your abs should not fade at your bellybutton. If I was an Ifbb judge I would be marking down all these men’s physique pro’s whose abs flatten at the bellybutton. To engage the lower abdominals you must tuck the tailbone under the torso to disengage the hip flexors and engage the muscles below your bellybutton. Hanging reverse crunches, Decline bench reverse crunches, reverse crunches with ankle straps to low pulley. All exercises demonstrated in the video below. Hope this helps guys http://youtu.be/o8cSryGgMBI