Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 177: Ab Training Myths

Episode Date: November 2, 2015

An impressive 6-pack is a goal of many gym goers but few ever achieve it. Part of the problem is that there are a lot of myths surrounding building the core and getting a 6-pack. Sal, Adam & Justin expose some of these myths and break down how you can build your midsection. Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Learn more about Mind Pump at www.mindpumpradio.com Get the No BS 6-Pack Formula at www.mindpumpradio.com/bundle

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Is it Van Delay Silva, the axe murderer? Yeah. Yeah, well we got the axe murderer. The axe murderer. Oh, on the mic.

In this corner the ass You're they're trying to make sure I don't get any ass anymore down pound it I come home my girls just like oh We just did again for the ass murder You think you're the ass murder huh no ass for you for a week And we just ruined that I know I'm gonna start messing with you guys the same way. Immersed as Owness. Hey so I do that you guys I have some questions for Nurtie Sal. I do. Since Justin and I are we So I've been seeing

I'm so confused right now with all the posts that are going on in social media There's so many posts on how to do your abs correctly and I'm just I'm just lost on On how to do this because you see it everywhere like do this don't do that, you know, and then you see That was the one Bad you know your 80s both you guys Bro, so that's why we're not the encyclopedia guys. I know, we're sorry. I have ADD's. I have a totally popular chapter.

I'm everywhere and nowhere. Well, let's just, I don't feel like we've really taught much. Speaking of abs, why don't you bring the donuts you said you were gonna buy them. Because I want to try and keep my abs. That's why. Well, so, and I kind of, I can promise me sprinkles.

I kind of live with the talk about donuts. I kind of live by the philosophy. I don't want those Did you forget? No, I didn't forget I just wanted to make dead silence I would make dead silence. I wanted to see if you use it interrupt me for the fifth time Like a teacher maybe One more time Like the teacher. Maybe one more time. One more time. Get started over.

Okay, okay. All right, we'll stop talking. No, so I kind of live by the motto of like abs are made in the kitchen. So I spend a majority of my time focusing on my nutrition. You do crunches in the kitchen? No, I don't. I don't.

And I know it's cliche to say that, right? But the abdominal region for myself has been one of my strengths. It's something that we've talked with us before, even when I'm like at 13, 14% body fat, you can still see my abs. My body holds a lot more fat in my legs and my back and other areas. So, for me, fat thighs. Yeah, fat thighs.

So, for me, it's not been as much of those. No, my knees. Have I gone on my kicks where I'm doing a lot of different ad work, things like that. Yeah, absolutely, but I can't say that it's ever been something I've actually put my focus on. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna really try and develop my core and abdominal area.

Just because, like I said, it's been a strength. I'm always working on a lot of my weaknesses and that's just been something that's been on the back burner. But I do feel like it's an extremely popular question and everybody wants to know, what is the right way to do abs? What is the wrong way to do abs? What's the most effective way to do it?

And I'm just not the guy to ask. Well, for some reason, abs probably are surrounded by more fitness bullshit than any other body part. Like there's not nearly as much bullshit surrounding it. Well that's the trophy. Let's be honest, like, at the end of the program for anybody that's getting involved, because it's so marketed so much that that's the standard for what a, you know, a super healthy person

looks like. And, you know, from a difference of aesthetics, like coming from performance, like I'm with Adam on this one, like I train my core. And my core, you know, it supports my spine. So it's like everything. Right, you know, like I don't have isolating maneuvers that I don't even crunch, you know.

So I mean, if I'm doing anything for the courts involving some kind of a planking, you know, but I mean if I'm doing anything for the courts involving some kind of a planking You know, but I'm still working on fluid movement and Anything that's bracing Well, I mean so first off we have to say this Every single person listening right now has a six-pack. It's just covered in body fat if you can't see it So get lean enough and you will have Abs okay, so that's number abs. Okay, so that's number

one. Okay, so no matter how well developed your core is, you're not going to see it unless it's you're lean enough. Okay, so unlike Adam, I have to get under 10% in order to see my abs because I store body fat around my midsection. That being said, the biceps, excuse me, the abdominals are surrounded by more myth and bullshit than almost any of the body part. And I was going to say like, training your biceps isn't, isn't, you know, there isn't a whole bunch of ignorance around that or your legs or any other body part, like there is your core. They treat it like it's a different muscle. Like, for example, you know, train your core every day, but train your

biceps once or twice a week or your legs once or twice a week. You know, do high reps for your core, but do lower reps with heavy weight for everything else. It's all this, this baloney, and then all the exercises that people do to work the lower abs, or the upper abs, like you can divide those the abdominals into upper and lower. There's a lot of myth surrounding the abdominals, so I would like to cover the truth about the abdominals and about the core. Number one, in order to see them, you have to be lean. Number two, they develop like any other fucking muscle

in your body. There's no different than me. I'm working them. Yeah, that's it. And when you work them or some of them, you work all of them. Yes. So if you want to contract you.

If you want abs that stick out, if you want like block abs that come out that are real impressive, then you need to build your abs. And the way you build your abs is the same way you build the rest of your body with resistance. So I know a lot of especially physique competitors and bodybuilders will say, I don't like to do heavy ab exercises because it makes my waist blocky. Well, number one, that's bullshit. Maybe for them, that's true because they're looking for an extreme look and some of them even wear squeams to atrophy the muscles of the core and they get so lean, it doesn't matter because you can see them anyway. But for the vast majority

of you, building your abs will not give you a bigger waste, it'll just give you more visible abdominal muscles. You also want to look at the function of the muscles. So no, yes, we've talked about this before. You can't separate upper and lower abdominals. The abs attach at two general areas, the lower ribcage and at the pelvis. And I can't isolate between the ribcage and the middle of the abs or the middle of the abs and the pelvis. The whole feet contract. So whether I do a leg raise or I do a sit the abs or the middle of the abs and the pelvis. The whole thing contracts.

So whether I do a leg raise or I do a sit-up, I'm not working upper on lower abs, I'm working my abs. Okay. Same thing with the bicep or any of the muscle that has two attachments. You want to look at the action of the abdominal muscles. What is the primary action of, and we're just focusing on the abs because that's the six fat. The primary function of the abs is to flex the lumbar spine.

Okay, so that means you're bringing the pelvis closer to the ribcage, or you're bringing the ribcage closer to the pelvis. So it's at that lower back portion of the body that bends. It's not bending at the waist. Does that make sense? Let me give you the difference. If I were to do a, if I were standing

and just lift one leg straight out in front of me, I'm doing kind of a half leg raise, right? Cause one leg is coming out in front of me. And that's a hip flexor. Now, even if I did both legs, my abs are gonna stabilize a little bit, but the main muscle that's lifting my legs is my hip flexors. The abs aren't doing the full range of motion

until I get my pelvis to tilt and bring my pelvis closer to my rib cage. That lower, that kind of crunch position, that crunch movement is the abs doing their work. The reason why leg raises are such a good ab building exercises because when I extend my legs, I lengthen the lever, which increases the resistance. And now I'm trying to rotate my pelvis with this long lever and it's just more resistance. Which couldn't you say you get the same effect if I were to have a bent knee with a 30 pound dumbbell underneath my feet when I curl the pelvis all the way up. Right. It's just resistance. Exactly.

And I got to, you have to focus on that tailbone tucking, if the focus on the pelvis coming up and rotating. Yeah, it contracts fully. Right. And the app doesn't fully contract. I mean, you're still in a stretched state for those. Correct. Now, this doesn't mean that you shouldn't do sit up type exercises and leg raised type exercises because they all work the apps.

You still do them because there's different recruitment patterns and just like with any muscle group, different exercises, if you use a plethora of exercises better than just always focusing on one. But the other thing you want to look at also is the range of motion of the abs. The range of motion, you know, when I'm on the floor and I'm doing a crunch, I'm limited by the flatness of the floor. The abs actually extend beyond that. So this is where like a physio ball. This is one of the exercises that I would actually do on a physio ball. It's probably the only exercise I would do on a physio ball is a sit-up or a crunch

because it allows my back to rotate to, excuse me, wrap around the ball in a full range of a son. I'm stretching the abs and then I come up and I crunch over the ball. So now I'm getting a full range of motion. What's the way people do? They're called GHBs or those machines where you lean back all the way

and you get full flexion out of that. Right, right. And the thing to keep in mind too, is when you're doing these resistance-based exercise, and the reason why you wanna use resistance before I go into that is because you wanna build abs that stick out. This is that no BS6 pack formula, that is a ABB program that we have on there.

That's what it focuses on. It focuses on building your core so that it's visible at higher body fat percentages. Because if you have bigger abs that kind of bulge out a little bit, you don't have to get quite as lean to see them. And you'll have really strong midsection. But in terms of that full range of motion,

the other thing you want to keep in mind is, you have to be relatively strong in your core to be able to do that stuff without hurting yourself. So for a lot of guys, I know a lot of guys and girls that work out and never really work their abs properly. And if I try to take them through a proper

Roman chair sit up where they're getting lumbar extension and lumbar flexion, they can't do it. It's all hip flexor and then they say it hurts their back because one of the hip flexors, the Ilioso as muscle attaches at the lumbar spine and they're feeling a pull there and then boom, I hurt my lower back. And that's why some people say exercises like

Roman chair sit-ups or decline sit-ups are not good for the lower back. It's actually okay if you're core strong enough to be able to do those exercises. But then you have other functions too, right? You have rotation, right? The core is involved in rotating the body. So there's lots of great rotation exercises.

I know you do those, Justin. Oh, yeah, all day. So what do you do, like wood chops? Wood chops, yeah, exactly. And just the trunk rotations with cables are that's really all I use with the cables is for that wood chops and trunk rotation. But yeah, I mean, I also do like carries.

And why I do these unilateral carries is because you know I'm training my core to stabilize me in movement and Whether I'm getting lateral forces or You know compressing forces down like I'm making sure that I'm fully contracted and I'm moving And so that's one way I'll do it. So you lateral carry for those of people that are listening They're like what is he talking about? It would be like holding a very heavy dumbbell

or kettlebell in one hand. Right. And then walking. So that the opposite side of my core has to stabilize so that my spine doesn't just fold in half in the direction of the heavy dumbbell. Yes, right? Yes.

Yeah, so it just, I mean, it teaches me to be able to count for different forces coming at me and I'll be strong in that. And I'll be able to stabilize myself. And plus it builds and obviously it builds the obliques and everything else supporting that lateral movement. Well, let's talk about the obliques. That's like a muscle. It's so important.

It's so important, but everybody demonizes. Yeah. Don't work your obliques. Yeah. That's like a muscle. It's so important. It's so important, but everybody demonizes. Yeah. Like, don't work your obliques. Your waist is going to grow. Makes me look all square. Yeah. It's ridiculous. If anything, the obliques, you want to talk about having, you know when people say you

need to have a strong core to have power, like if you play sports and stuff. Oh, 100%. They're talking a lot about the obliques. Obliques. Yeah. That's what gives you that power. Matter of fact, if you look at ancient sculptures of like Hercules and stuff like that from the ancient Greeks, by the way, they modeled these sculptures off of athletes that are like, yeah, athletes.

And they, all these sculptures are muscular, very muscular, very detailed, but they all have these very strong obliques because they saw that athletes that could kick ass had these very, they look like they do. They had these strong obliques. So for those of you guys listening, you know, worrying about making your waist any bigger, just get lean. I promise your obliques aren't going to make your waist an inch larger.

At the absolute most, you might get a quarter inch on your waist, but that's at like, 2% body fat. Saying that reminds me of the same people that say they don't want their legs to get any bigger, so they avoid working their legs out or doing hamstrings and stuff like that,

because it's just more leg work that's gonna make their legs look bigger. And it's like when you're more shapely, it's you look leaner, you look better. Like even if like you measure it, maybe your legs do go up an inch or maybe your waist does go up one inch, but the illusion that it's created because of the, how defined you now are

because now you actually have muscle there, it's, well think about it this way. A lean, a really lean 34 inch waist looks a lot smaller than a fat 34 inch waist. Oh yeah. Same size, right? But I mean, it's overstated though. My point is it's overstated.

You're not going to get a big waist from working your ability. Well, I think our ideas of what's portrayed as healthy and what we're all trying to aspire to, a lot of people have it wrong. Like they want, they see something genetically in somebody else that gives them that, V looking like real slim waist, whereas not everybody's bone structure supports that in musculature, and why would you be altering your body? You might as well, it's like cosmetic surgery at that point.

You know what you're doing, you're doing your body at disservice. But I'll tell you something, let me ask you guys a question. We've trained probably amongst the three of us, thousands of clients. How many clients have you ever had where you've trained for a long time,

you know, who said to you, oh, that's it, I don't wanna get any stronger, I don't wanna build any more muscle. Right, never. Has that ever happened? I've had, okay, I gotta admit, I don't want to get any stronger. I don't want to build any more muscle. Right. Never. Has that ever happened? I've had, okay, I've had this one lady that she came back to me and like the way that she built muscle genetically like her her trapezius like it grew and she got really like. How common is that?

Super rare. Yeah, rare. And I was like, wow, yeah, it's impressive. I mean, you're getting like very strong and she got really lean and she was super happy, but guess what? Her husband didn't like it. And so, you know, she sounds like a pussy.

Yeah, I'm saying. It's very implicit. Like, what? Dude, she looks awesome. Yeah, but that's funny. Yeah, well, that's the one time that's happened, but that was it. Yeah, I'd say in very rare cases, would I not train a body part on someone?

Super rare because they're, and usually these are people who already have it very, very well developed. Yeah, like a pair of calves, someone's got some badass calves. I was just gonna say, sometimes you'll see women with really massive calves and they're even workout.

Yeah, right, that might be the one time. Totally, it's totally something I completely, an eschip on, I don't know, female, if she's got great calves already, it's like four forums, calves, you know, those those those muscle groups, like you, well, they're always contributing exactly every time she does a squat and a lunge

and things like that. Her her her calves are getting fired and gauged. Just like her forums are getting engaged or time she does it row or anything else that she's got to grab her hold onto something. So yeah, I would those are things I would leave out for sure. But I mean, I mean, one of my favorite things is to introduce a lot of good hamstring work and stuff like that to

a female that never dead lifted really before. Do it. So let me talk about shaping that back side and really bring it bring it the curves of a leg to legs and ass and everything together. I was imagining it. I was imagining it. Oh, so the abs thing, I mean, going back here. So one of the things I do with a client when I teach abs too is when I'm just, I want to teach them how to engage first because you made a great point. You made a really good point about learning that you need to be able to to contract that lumbar, which most people can't even figure that out. Yeah.

You know, so they think it's flexing at the hips. They think they're just sitting up. Yes. And they feel it in the core, but that's because the core is just stabilizing. Yes. It's not working in its full range of motion, which would be lumbar flexion. So what I do is I take somebody and I lay them on the ground with their back flat, knees bent at 45 degrees. And when they do that, it's going to create this natural arch and they're low back. So there's no, and depending on if they already have a slight anterior pelvic tilt or not, they, some people, I have a really bad one, so I can actually fit my arm beneath that gap. Most people will be able to fit at least their hand.

And so what I'll tell them to do is I want you to. Oh my God. Oh my God. Sorry, there was a moment there. You know what? Don't ever do that if you're training client. Yes, you're back. Yeah, I'm gonna fit my cock.

I could totally fit my dick under your lower back. Whoa, whoa, whoa, I keep it right there. I see an opportunity. Jesus, dude. I got you. Yeah, that is not the time to do that. So that gap that we're talking about, that do not put your penis in there, what you want to do is you want to teach the client to learn how to press the low back flat.

And what you're doing is you're teaching them to engage that core and then that you're already going to get that slight flexion right there. You're taking them from anterior to posterior pelvic cell, which is what the core would do in that position. Exactly. And it's just a very simple way. I've always, you know, as a trainer, you always got to find these creative ways to get people to fire that, that, that, the fire the muscles correctly.

And that's one of them for abs. And I, I'll spend some time doing that, teaching them just how to, to contract and, and to fire that correctly, and then you advance them to. Well, I've had lots of athletes come to me, who are fit as hell, ripped abs, and then I'll train their core, and they are so hip flexor dominant,

they can't even activate their core properly. Because all they've done is they've done leg raises, reverse crunches, all those different things, but it's all hip flexor dominant. So one thing that I'll do, and this is a nice little trick you could do. And they run like crazy to all right. Well, that's it, yeah those different things, but it's all hip flex or dominant. So one thing that I'll do, and this is a nice little trick you could do. And they run like crazy to all. Right, let's see.

Yeah, most athletes, it's, yeah, they have overactive hip flexors. So here's a little trick you can do. Get on a fisioball like you're gonna do a crunch. So your lower back is on the top of the fisioball, your knees bent, feet flat on the floor, and then you want to activate your glutes and hamstrings. So I want you to push your butt up into the air

and keep your hips up. And so what you're doing, by flex activate your glutes and hamstrings. So I want you to push your butt up into the air and keep your hips up. And so what you're doing, by flexing the glutes, you are inhibiting activation of the hip flexors through a process called reciprocal inhibition. So when you flex a muscle, the opposing muscle naturally relaxes. So if I flex my bicep, tricep, relaxes, and so on. So in this position, I have them push their hips up,

always flexing the glutes. Now, while maintaining the hip up position, they have to do a crunch. And what will happen, a lot of them, is they'll try and sit down, they'll try and drop the hips, and I tell them, nope, keep your hips up, keep pushing up. And then all of a sudden, they feel their core working. And now, these really strong athletes can barely do 10 proper crunches. Okay, we have to talk about this. Yeah.

Now, once you engage, you actually are able to recruit that when I do it properly. Here, we have to talk about this because we in the past have bashed functional training and a lot of physioball stuff. No, here's where it's good. Here is a perfect example, though, where you might do a chest fly and some exercises on the physioball because you're trying to also address a postural deviation. Right. So think about that right now that you just brought up with someone who has an

overactive hip flexors and you're trying to get them to learn how to engage that. So you'll put them on the physio ball and since you're trying to get them to do that anyways, why not incorporate that on the same time that you're also doing like a chest exercise or something else that you're trying to do in that floor bridge position. Right. If you take it to the next level now, you're looking at, you know, can we can we activate all these other muscles while maintaining this type of muscle recruitment pattern with your core? And this isn't more, and listen, this is more advanced training. The people that should utilize these tools should be advanced and should know how to utilize them properly. Well, and we're not just putting people on balls and having them balanced and

shit because it looks cool because that's what it was, you know, 15 years ago. My balls. No, I mean, if they're doing that That should be the reason why so that just a normal person coming in to use the ball because they see someone else doing They're using the ball and they go she's fit she used the ball on the ball and use the ball. No, that's not how it works It's like we're there's something specifically that we're trying to do a why I'm creating that bridge, right? And so and so with our pro like the program the no BS six pack formula You know people are like well how often should I work on my app? So we recommend most people work out the whole body

between two or three days a week. There's no different for the core. So you do your core workout, your app workout, oblique, whatever. Two to three days a week, you do your heavy, harder workouts, use resistance so you can see them develop. And then add trigger sessions on your off days and watch what happens.

We got so much feedback when we first put that program out. I got so much feedback from people who are like, I could, I never had an impressive six back until I learned how to train them properly. I didn't have to get any leaner, but now I can see my abs coming out because I've learned how to develop them. The same thing happened to me.

I used to get real lean and I have real flat midsection then I learned how to develop them and I was able to develop this core. By the way, incidentally, my other heavy lifts, like my dead lifts over head presses and squats got better as well, because I was able to make those muscles stronger. Now if you could just figure out how to be a farer, your abs, yeah, I mean, a Cludum. We're gonna try that. We're gonna try that. That's a weight belt. There's no weight

belt do that a little bit. Yeah. So, yeah, I guess that's it. I guess that's it. Do you guys have anything to add with that? No, I just, I wanted us to touch on abs. I think that was a good, a good little refresher course, I think, for everybody on abs. Aptraining myths. Yes. Awesome. Don't forget to subscribe to Mind Pump.

Give us a great rating and give us an awesome review. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. For more information about this show and to get valuable free resources from Sal Adam and Justin, visit us at www.mindpumpradio.com. Until next time, this is MindPump.