Back in the day I use to do 100′s of isolated crunches, situps, cable crunches, inverted situps, russian twist and of course the crunch with rotation.  Than I really got aggressive and went to the ab roller which was another revolutionary  6 pack training device…. (NOT)

The fact is I did all those things thinking that it was what my abs needed to be strong and functional.  

After years of training this way, the six pack never came .

Matter of fact the love handles were growing and I had more low back stiffness then every.

Then one day I thought……….What if the abs are the same as  every other muscle in the body.

They must be loaded or activated before they can explode or contract.  

They must be trained in multiple planes of movement to really develop

They must be driven to be reactive not consiously contracted like with crunches

They must be trained  in conjunction with the rest of your body not in isolation. 

Matter of fact when you think about it…

What attaches the upper torso to the lower torso??    DA…The trunk!!! 

 So if I train full body movements (legs and arms working simultaeously as a stabilizer or as a mover) or  if do high level functional movements like running (sprinting perferrably), I am probably going to train my trunk a whole lot more effectively.

Matter of fact I have never seen a fat sprinter…  Have you??

The fact is the abs are “reactors” not contractors just like the rest of the neuromuscular system.

Now I realize we can’t all be sprinters or jumpers or throwers so how do you get your trunk to react like a spinter without sprinting???

What if we started using the ground and a little momentum by doing some simple stepping drills??  I bet that would crank up the abs.  Especially if you accelerated momentum and gravity with a little resistance band.

That essentially is what happens in sprinting…..  The trunk gets turned on with the foot landing into the ground  and from the momemtum of the legs and arms swinging.

Now that you have your isometric strength in standing and you have created a little momentum with weightshifting using  the sea-saw drill.   Lets get you stepping and moving more aggressively in the frontal and transverse planes.

Time to get your trunk sprinting!!

www.fitnessbandbootcamp.com its how you really learn about training with bands regardless if you are a fitness professional or a fitness enthusiasts.

Training to React not Just Contract

Dave