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Sep 02, 2023

Elite Trainer: You Only Need Two Abs Exercises

No, one of them isn't the plank Elite trainer Jeff Cavaliere, owner of ripped six-pack abs and a stacked physique, has taken to his YouTube channel to share the only two abs moves you need in your

No, one of them isn't the plank

Elite trainer Jeff Cavaliere, owner of ripped six-pack abs and a stacked physique, has taken to his YouTube channel to share the only two abs moves you need in your programme. And there are no planks to be seen.

'Your job of getting a four pack, six pack eight pack or even 10 pack becomes infinitely easier if you know the right type of ab exercises to do' says Cavaliere.

Before explaining the moves behind obtaining a visible six pack, he emphasises the true secret behind uncovering your core. 'If you can't see the results of your hard work, no matter how many ab exercises you're doing, then you're not doing it right. So [what] we have to do is make sure that our nutrition is in check and you're working on dropping your body fat levels so you can actually see the results of what I'm about to show you.'

Cavalier explains that in order to focus on the lower abs, the legs must be brought towards the mid section, and vice versa with the upper torso to focus on the upper abs. However, he continues that there are more muscles that make up our mid section, like the obliques, which also require adequate focus in our training and so rotational movements should be added.

For beginners: 'All I'm trying to do here is clear my pelvis off the ground. Think about your tailbone; if you can lift your tailbone off the ground by pulling your entire pelvis with your legs connected to it up towards your head and give a little twist at the top, you're going to effectively hit that lower abdominal region. Because the knees are bent, the weight of what you're lifting is actually quite easy, making it a perfect option for people who are at more of the beginner level.'

For intermediates: 'Now if you're a little bit more advanced all you have to do is not necessarily change the exercise, but change the amount of weight that you're lifting. And it's really easy to do because in this case, the weight we're lifting is our legs, so if we can straighten our knees a little bit more and do this as a straight-leg variation, you're getting the same effect lifting more weight through space. That's going to put a little bit more work towards the lower abs, but also getting that twist towards the top to incorporate once again the obliques.'

For advanced: 'Hop up on a bar because now we've changed the strength curve of the exercise. When we're up on a bar gravity is acting down against the legs making that weight feel even heavier.'

For beginners: 'So we're going to try to work ourselves up and then around into a circle landing on one shoulder blade, rolling back to two, rotating to the other shoulder blade, lifting myself off and continuing to work my way around in that circle. Of course, you want to divide the time that we're doing the exercise between rotating clockwise and also rotating counterclockwise.'

For intermediates: 'Intermediates would do something different. We call this the power hold and once again it's a top down movement with rotation. So I'm lifting not only my shoulder blades, but trying to get almost my entire torso up off the ground, but keeping my lower body in place. Except for one little modification, as I reach across my body to create some rotation, I lift the opposite leg just a little bit. But again, another great top down movement where you alternate both sides for the duration of however long you're doing the exercise – most of the time 45 to 60 seconds'

For advanced: 'We have a crunch pull down variation and what I like about this is it can become very advanced because you can continue to put the weight up the stack as heavy as you can handle. Try to fold your chest onto that top row of the abdominals, try to create a crease right under your chest line. Envision having the arms hooked right next to your ears, not moving at any point and only initiating the rep from that movement of the chest. If you can perform this exercise correctly guys, you can load it up as heavy as you want.'

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