5 Ab Workout Mistakes

Check out my client David’s transformation where he put on a whole bunch of muscle.

Today we’re going to talk about the five biggest ab workout mistakes that are absolutely killing your six pack and any chances of you ever seeing them.

Seriously, guys, this is not a filler or click bait video I’m gonna give you some real tips that I’ve used to build up my six pack much faster than anyone else I know.

Believe it or not, some ab workouts can be so counterproductive that they can actually be hurting your progress and your joints rather than helping you build some rock solid ab muscle.

Believe me, I see it all the time most people are working their abs plain wrong. For that reason, you really want to make sure that you pay close attention to this video

so you can avoid these mistakes so you’re not wasting your time on the floor doing crunches that aren’t working.

1. The number one mistake that kills more results than anything else that I’ve seen is not using weights for your ab exercises.

Sure it’s super important to make sure that your form is correct before starting to add on weights.

So start each new exercise with your bodyweight only but you want to get to the point where you can add weights while still maintaining proper form as soon as possible.

Most of you know about something known as Progressive overload. If you’ve never heard of Progressive overload you should know that you absolutely need it to experience improvements in almost every area related to exercise.

It’s defined as the gradual increase of stress placed on your body during training. There are different ways that you can overload a muscle

which will ultimately lead to the growth of that muscle but by far the best and most time efficient way is by increasing the intensity.

The easiest way to increase intensity is to gradually increase the weight load used.

Most people know this but for some reason, they apply to every other muscle in their body except their abs.I very rarely see anyone at the gym doing weighted crunches or weighted planks or weighted leg raises.

But I constantly see people doing all these exercises with no weight. Unless you’re a brand new beginner you should try to incorporate a little bit of weight into your ab movements.

Like I’m talking about even put a 2.5 lb plate to add some extra resistance and to progressively overload your abs.

When I see someone week after week come into the gym and do bodyweight crunches to my eyes it looks the same as someone walking into the gym week after week trying to build their biceps by curling an EZ bar with no weight on the bar.

If you saw someone standing there curling away with no weights on their EZ bar you be like, “damn that dude’s wasting his time.”Why because the intensity is so low that he’s never going to progressively overload his biceps.

Well, your core…… your abs are some of the strongest muscles in your whole body. They literally hold you up and connect your upper and lower body together.

These are very tough muscles and they’re used every single day even if you don’t work out…. just to get out of bed you have to use your abs.

So why in the world would you not use weights to challenge them?

In order to see your abs it’s not just about cutting body fat it’s also about building up that muscle so your abs can pop out.And the most effective and efficient way to do that is by using weights for your ab exercises.

So instead of doing regular crunches take a plate and put it behind your head. Instead of doing regular leg raises put a dumbbell between your feet and do it that way and instead of doing planks for 2 or 3 minutes put weight on your back and do it for only 45 seconds.

and like I said when your first starting out it can be as light as a 2.5-pound plate it doesn’t have to be heavy the key is to progress over time with the weight load.

The bottom line is that you want to shoot for about eight to ten reps with a heavyweight load for your abs and once you start doing 10 reps easily up your weight.

2. The second biggest mistake that I see is sticking to too short of a range of motion for your ab exercises.

Everyone knows the most common ab exercise is crunched on the floor. The problem is that you’re not stretching your ab muscles very much at all

with crunches on the floor and the negative stretch portion of the movement is the part of the movement that actually breaks down the muscle so it can heal stronger.

So you should take every opportunity that you get to increase your range of motion for your ab exercises.

For example, if you have a way in your gym to do declined crunches you’re taking a floor crunch with a range of motion of fewer than 90 degrees and increasing it to a decline crunch with a range of motion of over 120 degrees.

That’s going to lead to a lot more breakdown of your ab muscle during The Eccentric or the negative portion of that movement.

A declined bench is not the only way to increase your range of motion. You can also use a stability ball or a Bosu ball to increase range of motion.

Stability ball crunches when done correctly are about a million times more effective than regular crunches on the floor.

3. The third mistake that’s super common is a mistake related to form. Whenever you do ab exercises you want to focus on trunk flexion rather than hip or neck flexion.

Most people do their crunches by pulling on their head and their neck up and down. When really the proper way to do crunches is by lifting your shoulder blades up off the ground.

when you lift your shoulder blades off the ground you incorporate trunk flexion when you’re just pulling on your neck your hurting yourself and simply working on cervical or neck flexion which is obviously not going to build abs.

This problem goes a lot further than just crunches. With leg raises and knee tucks most people are just working their hip flexors.

It’s important to curve your hips and your knees into your chest during leg raising exercises or else you will not incorporate trunk flexion and you won’t be working your abs.

one of the best methods that I’ve found for myself to make sure that I incorporate trunk flexion is by simply focusing on bending around my belly button.

if the movement is only happening around my hip joint or my neck joint then I know I’m doing something wrong.

4. The fourth mistake is never switching up you’re ab work out.

this is a mistake that doesn’t need a lot of explanation. in order to have results you have to constantly stimulate your muscles in new ways.

I recommend you change up your ab workout every four to six weeks.

Of course, every ab workout will have some form of crunches or leg raises in there but you can just change up how you do it.

So one month you might be doing crunches on a stability ball the next month you’ll be doing crunches on a Bosu ball.

It might not sound like that big of a change but these tiny changes are absolutely necessary to always stimulate your ab muscles in new ways.

Point is change up your workout.

5. The last mistake that I see and this one’s a big one is using selectorized equipment for your abs. 

you guys have seen that exercise where you take the pin out to select your weight to grab the handles behind your head and start crunching up and down with a very limited range of motion.

That crunch machine is absolutely useless at everything except maybe messing up your lower back.

How about the machine where you put your knees in between two pads and twist left to right for your obliques.

That’s another one that’s completely useless. Stay away from all ab machines that don’t have a free range of motion they’re a complete waste of your time.

in general, you’re going to be much better off using free weights and things like stability balls than any machine that costs thousands of dollars.

so to summarize real quick

number 1 start using weights for most of your ab exercises.

number two increase your range of motion with benches stability balls pads and many other creative ways.

Number 3 ensure trunk flexion by focusing on bending around your belly button and for all crunch movements focus on your shoulder blades elevating off the ground.

Number 4 was to switch your exercises and your workout up about once every month.

and number 5 was to stay away from selectorized machinery and stick to very basic forms of equipment.

that’s it guys I really hope this tip has helped you out if you enjoyed it make sure check out my website gravity transformation.com where you get a lot more than just another workout and diet plan. see you guys soon