Tuesday

A new 5-Step Method for Six Pack Abs

I have a guest article today from my good friend Dr. Kareem Samhouri, an expert doctor of physical therapy, and he shows you a really unusual way to train the abs.

This is a totally different style of training as you can see below in the 5 step method...check it out:


The New Method For Six Pack Abs

by Dr. Kareem F. Samhouri, CSCS, HFS
Neuro Metabolic Fat Loss Expert


Slow abs training is now over.

It's time for a new era.

Training for six pack abs takes strategy. Understanding how to properly utilize your abs as stability muscles in all exercises will quickly improve your six pack abs training results. However, in order to be able to utilize your abs to their full capacity, you have to first know how to recruit them. This is where most people get lost... at least until now.

I've developed a sure-fire method for 'turning your abs on' with each and every exercise you do, beginning after the first 5 minutes of your exercise program. There's no way around it, and you simply cannot fail. I'm more than excited to share this method with you - are you ready to see major change in a very short period of time?

I'm going to teach you exactly what to do if you want to 'activate' your abs in every exercise you do, throughout every workout. If you think about it, this is going to make ab rockers feel like dinosaurs, and crunches seem as silly as those electrical stimulation devices you see on TV. You will literally be working your abs out for every rep of every exercise you do, and your midsection will be begging for a break when you're all done.

Your six pack abs results are about to improve exponentially.

Step 1 - Fatigue out your extremities completely.
Step 2 - 100 reps glutes
Step 3 - Fatigue out your extremities completely.
Step 4 - 100 reps abs
Step 5 - Rest 4-5 minutes and repeat, involving more of your trunk musculature with each exercise of each circuit.
Let's take a look at each one of these steps in greater detail, with an explanation for each, and why this works so well.


Step 1 - Fatigue out your extremities completely.

Example Set:

1. Squat & Dumbbell Presses - Light weight, as follows: 10 reps slow, 10 reps medium, 10 reps fast - repeat until fatigue or form broken

2. Push Up Superset on Knees - 3 Push Up Positions, alternating to fatigue, as follows:

Diamond (close grip) Push Up, Standard (shoulder width) Push Up, Wide Grip/Mid Pec (hands as far apart as possible) Push Up

This goes against most modern teachings of 'proximal stability before distal mobility' and should be used with caution. The reason people usually teach you to work trunk muscles first is so that your little muscles (muscles in your arms and legs) won't give out and collapse on you when you're lifting a heavy weight. However, we're taking the neurological signal from our trunk, spreading it to our extremities, and then never bringing it back to our trunk.

In this step, what we're doing is depriving our arms and legs of oxygen, forcing blood out of our extremities, and producing lactic acid there quickly. Since our bodies will hold onto our blood and oxygen regardless, it's a strong bet that this oxygen is moving centrally, or towards our trunk. In a sense, we've now supersaturated our trunk muscles with blood, nutrients, and oxygen. We are primed for Step 2.


Step 2 - 100 reps Glutes

Example Glute Exercise:

Straight Leg Bridge On Ball

Lay on your back, placing your heels into the ball avoid stabilizing with your arms as much as possible. Emphasize squeezing your glutes to 'levitate your bottom off the ground' & go fast!

100 reps

Your glutes and lower abs are a pair. If you're like 99% of people out there, you have a difficult time recruiting your lower abs. By focusing on glute activation exercises second, once we have the oxygen present to endure more reps, we are actually targeting our lower abs, or "pre-activating" them for what's to come.


Step 3 - Fatigue out your extremities completely.

Example Set:

1. Side Step Squat With Med Ball Press - Start with your feet together, take a large step to the right, keeping your left foot on the ground, then squat and stand onto only your right leg while drawing your left knee towards your right shoulder. Simultaneously, press a medicine ball into the air. As you return the medicine ball towards your chest, shift your weight back into the wide squat position with your left leg on the ground and perform in reverse as you stand.

10 reps slow, 10 reps medium, 10 reps fast - repeat until fatigue or form broken

2. '3-Position' Bicep Curls With Dumbbells - 3 Curling Positions, alternating to fatigue, as follows:
Palms backward (Reverse Curls), Palms inward (Hammer Curls), Palms forward (Bicep Curls)

It's time to shift focus back to our arms and legs, but this time our abs are working to stabilize us, reduce risk of injury, and become a part of all exercises. We are now working our abs involuntarily, but driving more oxygen and blood to them at the same time through the aforementioned method above.


Step 4 - 100 reps abs

Ok, so it's time to test our ability, with no rest whatsoever, to really challenge our abs to hit the next level of strength and endurance. Because we have supersaturated them with oxygen, our aerobic abs fibers (about 80% of the abs fibers the average person has) are primed for the best performance of our lives. Now it's time to really challenge ourselves to do the impossible, and force ourselves to go above and beyond what we 'know' to be our limits. It's time for the new era for our abs.

Example Abs Superset:

Inversion Abs & Abs Wheel - Alternate each exercise to fatigue (perhaps 10 or so reps at a time), until you reach 100 total repetitions.

1. Inversion abs is to be done on a decline bench, with your feet towards the floor. Keeping your legs as straight as possible, while pulling through your abs, drive your legs into the air so that your spine is curved and you are slowly returning down towards the bench, one spinal segment at a time. As your low back approaches the bench, be sure to keep it as flat against the bench as possible to activate your transversus abdominus, or human waist belt.

2. Abs Wheel - similar to a push up position on knees, begin with abs wheel underneath the center of your chest. Now, maintaining tension between your shoulder-blades, slowly guide the abs wheel out in front of you, without dipping or bending your back. Maintain an abdominal tremble throughout. As you return the abs wheel to the starting position, be sure not to shift your weight posteriorly, as this will take away much of the effect.

100 reps, alternating between exercises each time you reach fatigue.

(That's just an example abs superset -- if you can't do those, you can choose your 2 favorite direct abs exercises from Truth About Abs or another routine)


Step 5 - Rest 4-5 minutes and repeat, involving more of your trunk musculature with each exercise of each circuit.

Adequate rest is necessary to derive as much from the following set. By involving more of our trunk muscles with each successive set, we are essentially teaching our bodies to always activate trunk muscles when using our extremities. This is a good habit to form to reduce risk of injury, and it also serves our greater purpose of teaching our bodies how to turn every exercise we do into an abs exercise at the same time.

Why spend your days exercising body part after body part, isolating one muscle group after the next?

Why spend so much time in the gym?

It's no longer necessary. It's time that you learn how to exercise as much of your body as possible, and to do it quickly.

I'm here to support you, if you're ready to take the next step. Join the thousands of people who already have - I've prepared a video presentation that will teach you all sorts of tricks just like this one and you can see it right here:

http://www.doubleedgefatloss.com/

-Dr. K
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Thanks so much to Kareem for a killer article! This is definitely a unique style of training that can help people to get to the next level with their abs.

Make sure to check out Kareem's site at http://www.doubleedgefatloss.com/ as he has an amazing program there for you!

Enjoy!

I'll be back soon with the next Lean-Body Secrets Ezine.

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Author - The Truth About 6-Pack Abs