In today’s post I’m going to give you my top 11 favourite ab exercises.
Let’s face it… having rock hard abs has got to be one the most impressive thing you can display on your body. Well, at least that’s what Jersey Shores ‘the Situation’ would say.
But he’s right. I mean, who doesn’t abs that turn heads?
As I’ve stated in previous posts, for beginners; apart from planks, side planks, prone mountains and bird dogs. All dynamic ab exercises, that I’m about to show you, are a waste of time for a couple reasons.
Beginners don’t need to perform dynamic ab exercises because…
At first; Beginners will get enough ab training from all other big compound exercises such as shoulder presses, chin ups, squats, deadlifts and pushups. They have a 2 bird with one stone effect, so why do any more if you don’t have to?
Usually all dynamic exercises are too hard for beginners to perform correctly with good technique. So until you build up your strength via body weight exercises and plank variations you won’t really benefit from doing em’.
Also remember that if you are above 15% body fat, it doesn’t matter how much you train your abs. What you need to do is focus on fat loss first and then move your focus towards getting a 6 pack. By the way these two posts should help you do that…
This is a training blog post by Grant Lofthouse
Time and time again I get asked what’s the best rep range for fat loss without cardio? And time and time again I repeat the same answer…
But before I go on I want to stipulate that I’m talking about fat loss, not weight loss. There’s a difference.
For average joes, the best rep range for fat loss is 6-8. And even less for raw beginners, more like 5-8.
Don’t get me wrong, high rep training has its place in a fat loss workout. But it should not be predominate. And that’s where people make the biggest mistake when trying to lose fat without cardio.
The reason why we are lead to believe that high rep training workouts work, is because people have been brainwashed into thinking that unless you about to vomit and pass out on the floor, the program isn’t effective. Never judge the effectiveness of a program based on your heart rate.
Read that last point again…
Ok back on track now with longevity. It’s funny (well not really, I’m kinda’ pissed off) as I write this to you I’m in the process of umm’n and ahhh’n on whether or not to go back under the knife again for my knee. A couple days ago I got a second opinion on my world famous knee because I haven’t been happy with its progress since the clean out I had in September last year.
Turns out that my new surgeon believes my previous surgeon has over tightened my medial ligament which results in my right knee cap actually sitting medially and not where it’s supposed to be.
I’m going in for scans on Tuesday so hopefully this will determine if he’s right or not. Fingers crossed.
Anyways… if you have missed any of the pervious longevity posts then check em out here…
- Longevity Part 2: Balance Push to Pull
- Longevity
In today’s post I’m going to quickly give you a technique that will not only act as a finisher but also embrace longevity.
There are known as iso holds (isometric holds). Or as I like to call them – Recovery finishers.
I got this idea from Eric Cressey and Mike Robertson where you basically hold a loaded stretched position for a period of time.
Why are iso holds great?
For starters you’re killing two birds with one stone. If you perform an upper body session and finish off with a couple sets of pushups iso’s and pullup iso’s, you will be finished!
Where the longevity part comes in is that you are actually lengthening the muscle tissue during the iso hold. This is because as you start to fatigue you gradually sink lower and lower into the stretched position. In result you will significantly lengthen the muscle that has been shortened the entire time during training.
Why not just stretch after training?
This is a training blog post by Grant Lofthouse
Hey Grant here,
Currently my longevity has gone to shit. I’m totally stressed out at the moment because my business is going crazy – which is a good thing, but still stressful. I have checklist of about 100 things at the moment but I ain’t gett’n much done because I don’t have the internet, so I got to head to the library each day to knock off some things.
Because of this I’ve had terrible sleep the last few nights, my workout last night was horrible and I’m not functioning 100%.
If I’m stressed about these little things, imagine what everyone else’s stress levels are like. This supports my part one blog post where I basically state that you should only train weight 3 times a week and even still you need to take into consideration how much you bench, deadlift, squat and perform all other exercises that place a lot of stress on your joints, tendons and CNS.
In today’s post I want to continue longevity and cover balancing push to push ratios which basically means for every pushing exercise you perform such as bench press, shoulder press or any other exercise that involves the chest, shoulders or triceps, you need to perform a pulling exercise such as chins, one arm rows or any other exercise that involves your back, posterior deltoid or bicep.
For example…
I know I have been teasing you with my new Ripped Without Cardio workout for a month or so now. But I’m happy to announce that the program is now live and 100% free. The program has a unique training method known as heavy, light and medium, but I have thrown my little spin on [...]
This is a training blog post by Grant Lofthouse
First of all I want to start this post off by explaining why I have been absent for the past few days. Currently I am working on a training program for everyone. It’s a killer program that will keep you healthy but also get you ripped without cardio. I’m also including a diet that goes along with the program just for the sake of it. You will have access to this hopefully by the end of next week. Definitely by Monday the 21st, so for now just hold onto your horses, continue with your current program and then give mine ago.
Now back to the post…
Today’s post is about something I believe most people forget and even trainers forget… Longevity.
Now I’m a traditional meat head, I love the weight room and you will never EVER see me in the ‘cardio room’ filled with treadmills and bikes. I love lifting heavy shit whilst listening to some Eminem, ACDC or whatever, as long as it’s either hip hop, rock or metal.
I don’t go as far as screaming til I turn blue or smacking my face before a heavy set. But I will give it the old “c’mon baby” or even the famous Ronnie Coleman quote “yeahhh buddyyy”.
Now a few years ago for a warm up I would literally walk into my gym do a couple arm swings, crack my knuckles and then hit the bar.
I would do the biggest baddest lift like a squat or bench. Chuck on a pile of plates and just smash it out, didn’t care about from, just the numbers.
This is a training blog post by Grant Lofthouse
I’ve hit a big wall with my training, my results have come to a screeching halt and because of this I’m starting to envy my training. What should I do?
1. Over trained
First and foremost you are probably if not definitely over trained. Symptoms of overtraining are basically what you are experiencing at the moment (no results, not wanting to train) and other things such as:
Always getting sick
Getting injured
Always feeling tired
Terrible sleep
What you should do first is take a complete week off training, don’t even look or think about a barbell or dumbbell. If you can; on the weekend go somewhere and have a mini holiday for a night or two.
Bonus tip: When you come back to training you need to put in place a deload week every 4-8 weeks. The simplest way to deload is by taking 40% off the amount of reps you completed in week 1. For example…
Hey hope you are fit n’ well,
If you have been following me for a while you would know that I’m obsessed with Seinfeld. Anyway today I watched one of my favourite episodes ‘The Jimmy’.
In one of the scenes Jimmy is mindlessly pumping away on a stair climber. Now whilst I was laughing at Jimmy for always talking as the 3rd person “Jimmy’s got some moves”… something hit me.
Nothing has changed from 20 years ago, people are still looking to the cardio machines (treadmill, bike, cross trainer, stair climber) as their answer to losing body fat and getting ripped.
I have given up on these kinds of people, that’s why I started this blog. So I don’t have to tell any of my readers to stop following Jimmy’s ways. I’m just over it, these people will never change. It’s like trying to convert a power lifter over to bodybuilding and vice versa… it just won’t happen.
Now because this blog is for cardio haters and it’s safe enough to say that Seinfeld is pretty old school. I’m going to combine the two and give you and Old School Finisher that doesn’t involve the treadmill, bike, cross trainer or stair climber…
This is a training blog post by Grant Lofthouse
I have been receiving a few questions about this previous post I did here…
The death of stretching before exercise
In this pervious post I talked about why you should not solely rely on stretching before exercise as a warm up due to making you slower, weaker, and decreasing your balance and reaction time.
I am now going to clarify and add onto some of the questions I have been getting.
So you don’t stretch at all before exercise?
This is a training blog post by Grant Lofthouse
Im going to tick off your ‘old schooled’ gym teacher when I tell you that a light jog and then static stretch is the worst way to warm up before exercising.
Back in the day your sporting coach would have said that your muscles are like blu-tack; if you try to stretch them when they’re cold they will snap. But if you warm the blu-tack up first and then stretch it will lengthen quite significantly. To a certain degree this is correct, you definitely need to be warm before you get into physical exercise. But there is the wrong way and the right way.
As much as I like keeping this blog a science free place… studies has now shown that static stretching before exercise…
- Decreases the muscles isometric strength
- Decreases the muscles dynamic strength.
Or in other words…
– makes you slower
- makes you weaker
- decreases you balance
- decreases you reaction time
I don’t know about you but before I even touch a weight I want to be the opposite of the list above.
I want to be fast, strong and balanced. If I’m not then it defeats the purpose of training, and not only that it increases the risk of injuring myself.
I know this will be hard to get your mind around this. I am not saying there is no room for static stretching. You should stretch some muscles to help you hold certain positions better, but don’t use static stretching as your answer to prevent injury. Especially if you want to improve your training/competitive performance.
Ok so how do you prepare yourself correctly to maximise your training performance?
