Abs

[Guest Garre33]

Hey guys, I've been looking for a workout that hits my abs really hard. I know there are body levers and cranks, but my strength has too big of gaps for cranks (I can only do it with tuck levers and it doesn't hit my abs, just everything else) and body levers are way too hard (I can barely move during them so it doesn't hit my abs).

I used to use the abwheel (wheel with handles) and that killed my abs, but is there another exercise that I can use to build up strength in my abs and not kill the rest of my body with?

Thanks,

Garrett

[chauinc]

If you work on getting the L seat you'll get mad abs. Keep working on it and once your able to hold the full L seat for a fair amount of time you'll get the core you want. For me when i was able to get into a L seat my abs could be seen without me flexing. And after working it over the summer i can hold the L seat about 20 seconds and i did my first V Seat today woo; it was only for 1-2 seconds though.

http://www.beastskills.com/L%20Seat.htm

Go there for a great guide on L seats

[Guest Garre33]

Awesome man, thanks a lot. I'll start putting more time into L seats (sits?) and hanging leg raises. Congrats on the V seat!

[StevenL]

Hollow holds and hollow rocks also work well for recruiting the abs(mostly) in isolation.

[jtaporco]

i did my first V Seat today woo; it was only for 1-2 seconds though.

is v seat the same thing as a straddle L-sit?

[chauinc]

This is a v-seat

[Guest Garre33]

wow, even if I did have the core to hold this position, my flexibility isnt even close to allowing me to do that...

[Blairbob]

Garre33, have you tried doing body levers from candle and lowering? Get into the candle position and lower. If you have to, do it in tucked form up, hit candle, lower as far down as you can in a hollow, then tuck to bottom. Repeat.

Hanging and support leg lifts will hit your abs hard. I use a sequence of 3 leg lifts, hold for 3 at V, 3 leg lifts. Or hold for 5, 5 leg lifts, hold for 3.

[Guest Garre33]

Thanks Blairbob, I'll start working with those on my leg days.

[Blairbob]

ok...but they aren't really leg movements. They are psoas/hip movements but they are not the same as pistols/glute ham/squats, etc

[Guest Garre33]

I know, but my leg days are short compared to static and pull up/pushup/dip days so I'll put stomach and core on leg days to balance it out. I'll probably do an overhaul on my workout schedule once the book comes out anyway haha

[Blairbob]

As will I, no doubt.

That makes sense then.

[jtaporco]

how do you guys do hanging leg lifts without swinging back and forth on the bar? i tried them the other night and by the 2nd rep i'm swinging back and forth from raising my legs to the pike position.

[StevenJ]

It helps to have someone pressing on your shoulders like in the Russian Leg Lifts, but if you go slow you don't really pick up much of a swing.

[Alan O'Donnell]

How are leg lifts supposed to compare to l-sits in terms of difficulty? I was relatively gym-less over the summer and spent a lot of time working on l-sits, so I'm competent at them. On my fists or parallettes I can hold an l-sit for 25 seconds or so, maybe 20 on rings. But I can't seem to do a single hanging leg raise - I just can't close my shoulder angle very well (and I'm also not very flexible). Even crossfit-style knees to elbows are difficult for me.

[Blairbob]

How high can you get in a knee to elbow? That doesn't require a lot of flexibility, especially once you break the shoulder angle.

As for doing a decent HLL, you'll need some pike flexibility. Not outstanding but some. I base this on myself. I have some pike flexibility but nothing remarkable. You could have really tight hamstrings not allowing you to go beyond the L much.

If you can't do a knee to elbow, I want to think ab strength. How high can you hold a hanging tuck? Can you do a K2E with a prep swing?

Really flexible itty bitties can do leg lifts but cannot do L-sits well but this is also because they don't work it as much ( girls typically ). It's the flip side for boys sometimes.

[Alan O'Donnell]

I can do k2es, but they've always felt surprisingly hard - I definitely can't do 10 in a row, for example. They really strain my shoulders. Same with l-pullups, it seems like whenever I try to work on them my left shoulder starts to complain. I can do 3-5 of them depending on grip, but they don't feel comfortable at all.

I can do 30 or so ab roll outs from my knees with full ROM, so while I'm not super strong at closing my shoulder angle, I could be and once was a lot weaker.

And pike flexibility is definitely a problem. I can easily get into a hanging l-sit, but to get my legs up any higher I have to start closing my shoulders (grrr, which is really hard and kind of hurts).

Also if I cheat on these exercises and bend my elbows a bit, everything's really easy. The problem seems to be that my straight-arm shoulder closing ability is really, really poor.

[Blairbob]

Weird.

Can you do a swinging hanging leg lift?

How is your shoulder flexibility?

[Alan O'Donnell]

Yeah, if I get a swing going I can get my legs up w/out too much trouble, but I have to close my shoulders a fair amount due to lack of hamstring flexibility. And if I'm fresh and mess with my shoulder activation a bit (corkscrewing my shoulders, which I guess activates my lats better?) I can do a few strictly, but again they don't feel great.

As for shoulder flexibility, I'm guessing it's bad? Recently I've started doing capoeira and a little bikram yoga in addition to my normal crossfit/gymastics fiddling, and my flexibility is getting loads better. But bridges are still pretty strenuous (heh not doing a back limber any time soon), and I don't have a great kipping pullup yet (when fresh I can get a somewhat ugly but strict muscle up on rings, my kipping bar muscle up doesn't seem to be close though).

[braindx]

You need better HAMSTRING flexibility and active abs and a bit of hip flexors strength. NOT more shoulder flexibility.

[StevenL]

it helps to think about "pushing the bar down" with your hands while doing the leg raise to recruit the lats. follow coach's progression for hanging leg raises(found on dragondoor.com) and be sure to use his slow 313 tempo. also work your pike stretch obviously and BE CONSISTENT. that is the most important thing.