working on getting those killer abs again.. too much beer, not enough exercise! ill be posting pics of my progress whenever i can. cmon GC lets get those beach 12 packs
Once you achieve killer abs, post them in the abs thread, trying to get that shit back to life haha. Favorite ab exercises are: Planks, dragon flags, hanging leg raises, straight chinups, wide grip chinups, floor wipes, and mason twists. Not to mentioned squat/deadlift.
Yeah man they just kill me I can barely do 3-4 before i'm done. Invented by Bruce Lee actually. Too bad I can't do them at home cause you need an incline bench or something equivalent.
yeah about to say i need a bench for those lol. i suppose i could absolutely ghetto rig a bench up or something. ill probably just skip those though and do standard crunches, floor sweeps, and ill throw in mason twists too. i dont have a solid workout plan, im just kinda going with it hahaha
Hey I feel ya man I lost my gym access a month ago(changed schools) and haven't been able to seriously work out since, just been doing any and all crazy bodyweight exercises I can find. Another good ab one is Turkish get-ups. Luckily i'm borrowing a couple 30 pound dumbbells from a buddy, no replacement for real bar and weight, but should help a bit if I get creative.
i just picked up 2 30 lb dumbbells at olympia sports lol. not much weight at all but hey i have 0 room for a bench or anything so gotta do what ya gotta do righT? ill try that turkish get up thing out, but im 6'0 and my ceiling is real low.. so if i stretch my arm out to the max ill be punching the ceiling lol
Yeah I've been doing hanging leg raises and stuff. I prefer maximum intensity over hundreds of useless reps.
As a certified Lower Back Disorder Specialist, I would recommend avoiding sit-ups. Engage in some kick-boxing type exercises and swimming if you want strong abdominal muscles. Isolating your abdominal muscles in that manner is definitely not a natural load-bearing task for your spine to adapt to.
I do dead-lifts quite a lot and that targets a lot of muscles, including lower back. Is it safe to assume that if I am doing stronger, more effective ab exercises than situps really wont affect me that much? Since I have been building up my lower back muscles. But I also know that it doesn't just have to do with your muscles, it has to do with the position of your lower spine when you are doing situps. I'd like to hear from you since you said you are certified as a Lower Back Disorder Specialist.
Not necessarily the position of your spine, but how much compression you're placing on your spine. The position will not change whether or not you're risking injury; you're risking injury regardless. One can assume that you're developing your lower back, but it's all a matter or probability if your lower back will be injured or not. The risk of injury only goes up if you engage in sit-ups and leg-lifts. However, the strength of your lower-back does not equate to the dexterity and health of your spine. You can injure one and not the other. Worst case scenario - do serious damage to both. There's no logical reason to use sit-ups and leg-lifts as tools for developing your abdominal muscles. There are other exercises that can place just as much and more stress on your abdominal muscles for them to tear so that they can rebuild and adapt (grow and strengthen), all of which are safe to engage in with respect to the health of your spine and lower back. Edit: Just posted this in another thread, but these are some safe (and superior) ways you can strengthen your core:
^ Thanks for the advice. I have to do situps though for the military I will def check out some of those things.