And the ab substitutions you SHOULD be using instead…
According to Men’s Health magazine, it takes more than 22,000 crunches to burn a pound of belly fat. (silent giggle)
So a quick news flash for you in case you didn’t already know — you’ll never get a flat stomach or six pack abs while crunching away on the ground.
No matter what the late night infomercial says, it won’t do diddly-squat.
Additionally, crunches can cause more harm than good. In fact, they literally can create more pain in your neck and lower back area.
So do what we did…give them up.
What should you do instead?
Use these scientifically-proven ab exercise substitutions below from Men’s Health fitness expert (and one of my personal coaches) Craig Ballantyne that you can (and should) use at home – or anywhere – to replace every type of sit up and crunch in your exercise plan.
I’ve learned a ton from Craig over the last couple years about how to strategically approach ab and core training. As a result, I have completely transformed my approach to training abs.
Why is this so important to me?
Because I’m getting old. lol.
Seriously, I don’t want to destroy my back or spine and I’m pretty sure you probably don’t either. Right?
So read this article thoroughly and I’m confident you’ll learn a ton while giving your back and neck the well-deserved break they need.
Please print this exercise substitution list so you have it handy when you need it.
HERE WE GO – starting with the 1 exercise NEVER to do…
I recently saw a trainer put his client through a BACK-DESTROYING exercise, and here’s what it was:
The exercise was weighted Stability Ball Crunches – but they were not normal crunches on the ball that you see people do.
No way.
You see, not only did the client do a full-on sit-up motion, but she kept going – violently – into a total body flexion movement that ended with her almost putting her head between her knees.
But doing any type of spinal flexion can be harmful to your low back because this will compress the disks in your spine.
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 jackknives
2) Replace cross-crunches (i.e. twisting or oblique crunches) with:
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.
Now I’ll be honest, I let myself go on this exercise in 2009, and not surprisingly, it was probably one of the reasons I had back pain.
At one point, I was only able to do a strict plank for 75 seconds, but I’ve worked my way back up over 135 seconds, and now my back pain is gone.
You can also do pushup-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 favorite advanced versions is the “Hands on the Floor,
Feet on the Ball Cross-body Mountain Climber” or even the “EXTREME X-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 Jackknife
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 tooI 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 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.
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 such as 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.
You’ll get all of these in Turbulence Training workouts, of course.
8.) Pulling Exercises that work your abs
Back in the day, I trained a fit woman who had never been asked to do a chin-up by her previous trainers. 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 were 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 favorite “total body pulling muscle ab exercises”.
* DB Renegade Row
* Pull-ups * Chin-ups/Pull-ups with knee-ups * Spiderman Pull-ups
Use those to make your workouts more efficient.
9) 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 favorite upper body exercises for abs:
* 1-Arm Press * 1-Arm Curl * DB Triceps Extension
Hope you enjoyed that massive list of ab exercise substitutions!
Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS Creator, TT Home Abdominal Workouts
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I’m not surprised to hear Craig talking about getting sore abs just from training triceps and other body parts because I’ve experienced the same exact thing.
As you can see this article is “chocked” full of killer ab training info.
Surprisingly, I still see people every time I’m at the gym crunching away for 100′s of crunches on the floor, wasting their time.
If you’re wondering how to use all these exercises the right way, try this scientifically-formulated at-home metabolic resistance abs program from good ole’ Craiggy boy…
You’ll instantly have a library full of ab alternatives you can use to implement today’s post – all for a measly $7:
For this week only you can get his complete 12-week abs home workout blueprint for just $7. So for less than the cost of a greasy fast food meal, this is a steal. Plus the fast food meal will make you fat while for the same price, you can get flatter abs.
It also includes the legendary “Abs 300″ workout challenge. (you gotta try this one)
Let’s see…
Drive to the gym ($3+ gas)
Getting a Starbucks (I call it Fivebucks..haha) on the way ($4.50)
…And never be concerned with where your next meal is coming from. Seriously.
How would you like to wake up everyday and leave your house NEVER having to worry about planning your nutrition?…
…Or never being concerned with where your next meal is coming from?
Well, if you click “play” and watch today’s short video you’ll see a brand new nutrition system my wife Karen and I have been using for a few weeks now that does just that.
Today’s post reveals the #1 reason people fail with fat-loss, AND a tool you can print out to overcome it.
I’ve been helping people get lean for well over 14 years now and this is (by far) the biggest reason for fat-loss failure.
So I just happen to know – for a fact – that whether you use today’s free download or not, will ultimately dictate success or failure with your nutrition and exercise.
How do I know?
Because it was super easy to identify after I spent five years owning and operating one of the top personal training studio franchises in the world while coaching over 1,000 clients privately in person.
During that time, we had a couple hundred clients who fell flat on their face and never achieved their goals. At the same exact time, we had several hundred who blew their goals out of the water.
It was insanely obvious that the clients who consistently used this method and tool absolutely crushed their goals.
I literally watched their lives change, their bodies’ transform, their relationships be saved, their confidence build, and their self-esteem be restored.
Simply put, after using this tool they built unstoppable fitness habits and they created their own compass and guide to achieve any fat loss goal.
At the same exact time, I also saw the exact opposite.
The people who wouldn’t listen and use today’s free tool struggled week after week, month after month, sometimes even year after year - even though it was part of the agreement and we laid out every expectation in their contract.
We would keep telling them the same thing over and over and over again, but they still wouldn’t listen.
Nothing was more irritating than people asking for advice or paying top dollar for a solution and professional coaching without listening or applying what works.
And almost every time I would tell them THIS was blocking their success and holding them back, they would get defensive and justify their ignorance.
I know this may sound a little harsh, but it’s the truth.
What can I say?…I guess it’s just human nature and the way we’re wired.
So – what was the real difference between all the failures and life-changing success stories?
Journaling their food and exercise.
I know this isn’t “sexy” but hold on — before you move onto your next internet interruption.
You may think this is nothing new or not a big deal? Well my friend, if you think that’s the case – you’re sadly mistaken.
In fact, this is the ONLY way to pinpoint small mistakes, re-adjust, and stay consistent with nutrition and exercise.
Especially because nutrition is about 75% of the results when it comes to the tricky game of fat loss. You would be blown away at the amount of people who make all these little tiny exercise and nutrition mistakes that really can make all the difference.
Here’s a quick story and a perfect example of what I mean.
We had a client that insisted she ate healthy at every meal month after month, but she wouldn’t journal her food or exercise. I finally insisted she journal or go find someplace else to hire a trainer. That’s right, I’ve had to fire paying clients when they didn’t listen.
After all, why bother wasting both time and money?
I’m not really a big Donald Trump fan, but I couldn’t resist the appropriate picture.
Funny part is, she immediately started journaling. Accountability works like a charm. Every. Single. Time.
After I looked at her journal a week later, I noticed she had “nuts and fruit” listed for 3 meals everyday.
Now even though both nuts and fruit are healthy food choices, it’s a horrible food combination for fat loss. It’s the deadly combination of sugar and fat.
Remember, carbs spike insulin. In the presence of higher insulin levels it’s almost impossible to burn fat.
Insulin + fat in the blood stream = fat storage.
It’s not going to make or break every fat loss plan, but in this case it was the tipping point.
I rearranged and tweaked those meals and “Snap”; just like that she was down a couple more jean sizes.
This is a great example of the power of journaling, coaching, and accountability.
I’m not saying you have to journal your food and exercise forever…
BUT…if you want to see visible results and build habits that can last a lifetime, it’s something that HAS to be done for at least 8 to 12 weeks or longer to start with.
In fact, to this day I go back to journaling my food and exercise whenever I’m looking for serious results or need to get back on track after slacking off.
It’s like a built-in accountability partner.
It’s another strange phenomenon of the fat loss game. Every time I start journaling I burn more fat and life just gets all around better.
That’s why I wanted to share today’s free download with you.
You could be doing everything else right, but if you don’t journal you’ll never stay consistent or be able to identify what’s holding you back from the body of your dreams.
Just click the link below and you’ll instantly put your fat loss on the fast track…if you use it consistently.
Do you know anybody else who struggles with keeping their nutrition on track and consistent?
If so, let’s share this important lesson with everybody we can! Just hit the “like” button below and spread the good word.
Remember: “Fat loss is a journey NOT an event.”
Helping you fight the fat burning good fight,
Shaun “consistency not perfection” Hadsall
P.S. If you decide to make the intelligent choice of using today’s tool, the next move is making sure you’re using an aggressive fat loss approach that doesn’t permanently “damage” your metabolism…
And that’s exactly what my good buddy down in Florida, Joel Marion, has done with his Xtreme Fat Loss Diet. You can learn all about the strategy of how this system works at the link below.
There’s nothing for sale. It’s a free content article that thoroughly explains this unique (and xtreme) fat loss approach and “how” our friend John lost 14 pounds in 25 days using it:
I have a feeling you’re going to discover something new (that you never realized about nuts and beans) in today’s video.
Just click play and you’ll uncover…
The biggest mistakes people make when eating beans and nuts (almost everybody makes at least one of these mistakes)
Why beans and nuts can easily block fat-loss
How to eat beans and nuts the RIGHT way for health and fat-loss
Remember, I’m not being a “hater” of nuts and beans. They are healthy food choices. But most folks simply don’t handle the approach or consumption of these foods the right way.
However, there are other certain foods that you should avoid altogether. And my buddy Kyle reveals them inside this video along with 2 simple rules to follow (at least five days of the week) if you’re trying to shed some pounds.
while for the same price, you can get flatter abs.
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