Best ab exercises to perform for power lifting and helping strengthen the core…other than deads and sqauts
GHR’s, ab wheel rollouts, landmines, pulldown abs with band resistance.
Got this in my e-mail. Cressey states that ab pulldowns may be a bad choice and can cause a hunched over posture. Any opinions on that?
[quote]gabex wrote:
Got this in my e-mail. Cressey states that ab pulldowns may be a bad choice and can cause a hunched over posture. Any opinions on that?[/quote]
Yeah, I saw that video as well. This would be true if you didn’t balance the abdominal work with some low back work and include some hip flexor/abdominal stretching.
He equates it to people who bench too often and have a rounded shoulder position. Does this mean you shouldn’t bench as much, or maybe you should balance out your benching with upper back work and pec stretching?
Just food for thought…
[quote]Modi wrote:
gabex wrote:
Got this in my e-mail. Cressey states that ab pulldowns may be a bad choice and can cause a hunched over posture. Any opinions on that?
Yeah, I saw that video as well. This would be true if you didn’t balance the abdominal work with some low back work and include some hip flexor/abdominal stretching.
He equates it to people who bench too often and have a rounded shoulder position. Does this mean you shouldn’t bench as much, or maybe you should balance out your benching with upper back work and pec stretching?
Just food for thought…[/quote]
Point.
I actually have tight pecs and am working on fixing a slight forward shoulder posture (and anterior pelvic tilt) right now. I was considering giving ab pulldowns a break for now to make sure they weren’t countering my efforts.
I really like spinal stabilization exercises like rollouts, weighted planks, pallof isometrics, side planks, and the such. Then again, that’s because I had a lot of trouble with excessive lower back rounding.
I think the best core exercises are the ones that help you fix your imbalances and weaknesses.
probably the following:
Rollouts
Weighted Planks
DB Side Bends
all done heavy, planks heavy and short time period, say 30 seconds at most. for powerlifting abs, you want to train them to be as strong and stable as possible for the duration of a heavy squat, meaning unrack, step back, squat, step forward, rack. which might take 10-12 seconds total.
this is just my opinion
also front squats beltless
[quote]schultzie wrote:
also front squats beltless[/quote]
Having only recently started front squats (after ~10yrs away from any squatting) I have never felt it in my abs; I feel it in my lower traps.
I use band resisted crunch (on one of those ‘ab bench’ things).
i do front squats deeper than my parallel squat with a 2-3 second pause and felt this has really helped me stay tall at the bottom of my squat. i also like hip ups, axe chops, ab rollouts, palof iso holds, and cable rotations.
I like straight leg situps with heavy dumbbells, full leg raises, banded movements, and twist variations (decline dumbbell, standing with a barbell).
I was wondering, because both squats and deadlifts require the spine to be in extended position, wouldn’t things like ab pulldowns be counter-intuitive. Is it just to be able to hit the hip flexors?
I use this.
[quote]TigerPower wrote:
I use this.
http://www.elitefts.com/documents/1100lb_abs.htm[/quote]
By no means am I putting down Wenning or any of the other EFS crew. They are elites and have almost a bible of knowledge. But arent there better ways of strengthening your abs than some of the exercises he was doing? It seems like he does those now since he is so…hefty.
check out STB’s post on his ab work