I think I have average to above average core strength…then I tried rollouts with a 25 on each side. These are absolutely brutal for me. I’m sore in places where I didnt even know I had muscles. To make the exercise easier, do I make the plates bigger (35 or 45) or smaller (10) ?
Bigger in my opinion
Are you doing these from your knees? Bigger plates would make it slightly easier just make sure you do not go down too far(chest to floor). I would recommend you stick with the 25s.
A better method for progression is knees up an incline(on a wall if you’re very weak->decrease incline->knees on floor then standing against incline ->standing flat.
Great core exercise and a milestone in strength-to-weight feats.
You can do fall outs and adjust resistance by adjusting height.
Pick up a power wheel, its has a wheel and straps to your feet and you can do roll outs or just walk arounds using your hands. It is absolutely brutal. Shit, I need to pull that thing out of my closet and get to work.
[quote]The-German wrote:
Are you doing these from your knees? Bigger plates would make it slightly easier just make sure you do not go down too far(chest to floor). I would recommend you stick with the 25s.
A better method for progression is knees up an incline(on a wall if you’re very weak->decrease incline->knees on floor then standing against incline ->standing flat.
Great core exercise and a milestone in strength-to-weight feats.
[/quote]
Yes I was on my knees, I would go to my torso was parallel to the floor
[quote]chobbs wrote:
I think I have average to above average core strength…then I tried rollouts with a 25 on each side. These are absolutely brutal for me. I’m sore in places where I didnt even know I had muscles. To make the exercise easier, do I make the plates bigger (35 or 45) or smaller (10) ?[/quote]
To make the move easier, change the range of motion (not extending down as far) or, if possible, do them up an incline (more applicable to an ab wheel, not really a barbell).
I’d actually go down to 10s or 5s on the bar. If you train in a gym, ask if they have a regular ab wheel. It’s probably tossed in a corner of “the ab room” or something.
In this article, Mike Boyle lays out a progression to work up to barbell rollouts. He also points out that the weight on the bar is what you’re basically “pulling in” on the concentric, so it doesn’t make much sense to increase that load when we’re having trouble right now. Even though the bigger plates will raise the bar a bit and slightly shorten the ROM, it’s counteracted by the now-increased difficulty of the concentric movement.
Thanks for the quick replies guys, thankfully today is “arms” day with madcow with some weighted carries at the end…with no situps, hanging leg raises or rollouts 
The first time I ever did ab wheel rollouts, I was sore an hour after training, and stayed sore for 4 days. That thing is brutal.
Out of curiosity…what do y’all do for sets and reps for ab rollouts typically?
[quote]hungry4more wrote:
Out of curiosity…what do y’all do for sets and reps for ab rollouts typically?[/quote]
I was gonna shoot for like 2 sets of 12-15, but got 8 and 4 lol
Not sure what you all are talking about. Ab rollouts are impossible. They can’t be done.
[quote]hungry4more wrote:
Out of curiosity…what do y’all do for sets and reps for ab rollouts typically?[/quote]
I usually get something like 3x10-12. When I get to the point that I can get 20 reps or something, I’ll start doing them standing.
I bought an ab wheel at Wal-Mart and left it at my gym to use.
A couple days later it had dissappeared.
Not sure where it rolled off to.
Konstantinovs. Awful music.
[quote]Field wrote:
I bought an ab wheel at Wal-Mart and left it at my gym to use.
A couple days later it had dissappeared.
Not sure where it rolled off to.[/quote]
lol
I aim for 4x15 from my knees.
I tried to do one standing the other week (after a few sets) and I pretty much just crumpled.
yeah man the difference between doing them from your knees and standing is huge.
I got so I was doing 3 x 15 from my knees, so I started doing them with my knees on a step and got up to 3 x 15 doing that so I figured I was good to try them standing…
nope. Not even close. I have no idea what the progression between knees on a step and standing is. If anyone can think of it then I’d love to hear it.
I’m doing 5x20 from knees at the moment but am still a long way off a standing roll-out.
A few years ago spent a while practising and got to maybe 80-90% rolled out before I collapsed. For me the weak spot is always the lower back.
The progression I used to get there was partial standing roll-outs to a wall for low reps (1-3), moving a little bit further away from the wall over time.
I stalled at that point though and just said fuck it. Plan to get one within the next year.
I do partial standing ones as far out as I can go (without a wall, because when you hit it you could lose tightness) and do 2 sets of those, then do a repfest of 25+ from the knees.
For progressing to a full out standing rollout, I haven’t done it myself but I think partial rollouts plus doing it up an incline would help get you there.