Anyone Tried the Ab Pavelizer?

Training Powerlifting
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Don’t be fooled by the Pavelizer or the Zebalizer, they are only second generation technology.

For a limited time, you can get the completely redesigned Vroomalizer III, for only $99.95!

That’s right, $99.95!

Act soon, this is a limited time offer, and you’ll pay the full regular price of $139.95 if you don’t act soon.

Built entirely out of titanium and kevlar, the Vroomalizer III is suitable for deployment in any situation. In fact, we’re so sure this 'alizer is the best on the market, we guarantee it won’t bend, fold, multilate, rust or corrode for five years.

If anything happens to your Vroomalizer III, you can return it for a full refund. *

  • This offer covers normal use only. Other terms, conditions and limitations apply. Not for use by children unless accompanied by an adult. No responsibility accepted for injuries or pregnancies due to misuse of the Vroomalizer III for unintended purposes – such as a thrust enhancing sexual aid.
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[quote]vroom wrote:
Don’t be fooled by the Pavelizer or the Zebalizer, they are only second generation technology.

For a limited time, you can get the completely redesigned Vroomalizer III, for only $99.95!

That’s right, $99.95!

Act soon, this is a limited time offer, and you’ll pay the full regular price of $139.95 if you don’t act soon.

Built entirely out of titanium and kevlar, the Vroomalizer III is suitable for deployment in any situation. In fact, we’re so sure this 'alizer is the best on the market, we guarantee it won’t bend, fold, multilate, rust or corrode for five years.

If anything happens to your Vroomalizer III, you can return it for a full refund. *

  • This offer covers normal use only. Other terms, conditions and limitations apply. Not for use by children unless accompanied by an adult. No responsibility accepted for injuries or pregnancies due to misuse of the Vroomalizer III for unintended purposes – such as a thrust enhancing sexual aid. [/quote]

Interesting that you left out the fact that one particular individual who has used the vroomalizer became injured and is in fact suing your company!

Come on vroom…why don’t you talke abou that?

I hope everyone can see why I’m for truth in advertising…Sheesh…

23

[quote]Vroom said:

  • This offer covers normal use only. Other terms, conditions and limitations apply. Not for use by children unless accompanied by an adult. No responsibility accepted for injuries or pregnancies due to misuse of the Vroomalizer III for unintended purposes – such as a thrust enhancing sexual aid.

Zeb replied:
Interesting that you left out the fact that one particular individual who has used the vroomalizer became injured and is in fact suing your company!

Come on vroom…why don’t you talke abou that?

I hope everyone can see why I’m for truth in advertising…Sheesh…
[/quote]

Yeah, but you should have read the disclaimer Zeb! Your lawsuit is groundless and frivilous… :stuck_out_tongue:

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Pavel’s book ‘Bulletproof Abs’ has about a third of it dedicated to advertising the device, and since it’s old, it advertises the old one and not the new version II I think.

Pavel does mention that you can do Jandas without it. He just says that you won’t be able to full inactivate the hip flexors simply by using isometrics.

You guys have to admit, using a plate-load is a more scientific method of engagine your posterior knee/hip muscles to deactivate the anterior ones.

Althogh personally, I LIKE hip flexors and think they’re fine used in tandem with the abs, so I still don’t follow the point of the exercise. I should read the book again.

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I’ll just stick to overheat lifting instead of doing these silly ab workouts. Besides, I’m waiting on the Overhead Liftilizer to come out.

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Am I missing something about Janda situps? Is the whole idea to keep your feet flat on the ground while doing situps with knees bent @ 90 degrees or so?

I just wedge my feet under the couch and the base of the couch keeps my feet and toes pinned. Is that essentially what the Pav thingy does?

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[quote]SteelyD wrote:
Am I missing something about Janda situps? Is the whole idea to keep your feet flat on the ground while doing situps with knees bent @ 90 degrees or so?

I just wedge my feet under the couch and the base of the couch keeps my feet and toes pinned. Is that essentially what the Pav thingy does?[/quote]

Here’s how I understand it.

The goal is to relax the psoas. The psoas connect the femur to the lumbar spine. They are part of the hip flexor group. During a traditional situp, the psoas contracts, pulling you up by your spine. This presents tremendous stress on the lumbar vertebrae.

Pavel says crunches (where your lumbar spine doesn’t move) don’t solve the problem, because when you contract on muscle, adjacent muscles also contract.

Allegedly, the pavelizer is supposed to fix this problem. You bend your knees over a bar, and pull them against the bar thus activating the hamstrings which double as hip extensors. According to pavel, antagonist muscles can’t both be active at the same time, so this shuts off the psoas, thus relieving stress on the back.

I think it’s all bullshit. The back stress is a legitimate problem. But the ideas here don’t add up.

When you squat, antagonists (quads and hamstrings) are both active. So much for antagonists can’t be active at the same time.

And why can’t you learn the motor control to avoid tensing up adjacent muscles? Pavel says your biceps will flex when you make a white knuckle fist. I was able to make my muscles white without any bicep tension.

And the hips DO flex during this pavelized situp. So the hip flexors couldn’t have been shut off. Yes, there are other hip flexors besides the psoas, but why would this exercise shut off the psoas and not the remaining hip flexors?

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Here’s something interesting, supporting the idea that the pavelizer is bullshit:

http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do;jsessionid=1268F1E3C72E188CDA53BC6FF25C298E.hydra?id=459269&cr=bodybuilding

quote:

  1. The Janda sit-up has recently resurfaced as an effective abdominal exercise sans hip flexor activation. Well, according to spine researcher, Dr. Stuart McGill, the opposite phenomenon actually occurs! During the Janda (or pressed-heel) sit-up, contraction of the hamstrings causes hip extension, which means that even greater hip flexion (or psoas activation) is required to complete the movement! In addition, bent-knee sit-ups actually activate the psoas more than straight leg sit-ups! This was all confirmed by EMG analysis in Juker et al., 1998. Unfortunately, Janda�??s hypothesis has never been substantiated by research.
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[quote]CollinAshmore wrote:
Hook a band to a power rack base and stretch it until it has tension, then put it around your ankles as you are doing situps. Seems to work the same way as the Pavelizer. Makes you fight to keep your feet on the ground by contracting your hamstrings.

[/quote]

If you are trying to do this technique at home and have no room for equipment, this rubber band style will also work if you attach it to the doorknob on the opposite side of a closed door.

Now you have the pavelized janda situp in the discomfort of your home floor.

I recommend doing this in the opposite direction of the doors open action: better structural support if you have a week mobile home style door.

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Well, I think trying to isolate the abs is stupid anyway. I thought Pavel was against isolation work? To me it makes much more sense to do exercises like squats, deadlifts, standing overhead presses and rollouts, maybe hanging leg raises, dragon flags and front levers. You abs will contract maximally but also work in conjunction with the hip flexors.

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Generally I like Pavels ideas, but I think the janda situp is bs. There’s a ton of other exercises to develop functional strenght in your abs, so what’s the point?

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[quote]Enjoy The Pain wrote:
Well, I think trying to isolate the abs is stupid anyway. I thought Pavel was against isolation work? To me it makes much more sense to do exercises like squats, deadlifts, standing overhead presses and rollouts, maybe hanging leg raises, dragon flags and front levers. You abs will contract maximally but also work in conjunction with the hip flexors.[/quote]

In one of his books, Power to the People, I believe, Pavel talks about this… That the old style bodybuilders would use full body moves. And he further advocates that you can build your body with nothing more than a health lift (modified dead lift) and a basic bench press.

And yeah you are right, he also advocates muscle irradiation, which lends itself to moves with more widespread muscle recruitment.

But then he released bulletproof abs. Its funny, most of his books recommend the rest of his books. In this very same book he also goes over dragon flags. Personally I’d like to see a book that goes over his personal routine…

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[quote]Alcoatari wrote:
In one of his books, Power to the People, I believe, Pavel talks about this… That the old style bodybuilders would use full body moves. And he further advocates that you can build your body with nothing more than a health lift (modified dead lift) and a basic bench press.

And yeah you are right, he also advocates muscle irradiation, which lends itself to moves with more widespread muscle recruitment.

But then he released bulletproof abs. Its funny, most of his books recommend the rest of his books. In this very same book he also goes over dragon flags. Personally I’d like to see a book that goes over his personal routine…[/quote]

Yeah, so why is he advocating the janda situp then? It goes against the law of muscle irradiation (which basically says that a muscle contracts harder if the surrounding muscles also contract). Contracting the glutes to relax the hip flexors during situps doesn’t sound very natural to me. Even if it works like this, it would be a bodybuilding exercise doing not much for functional strenght.

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In one of his newsletters pavel refers to the “full contact twist”-(Stick the end of a barbell in a corner and pivot)as his favourite ab excercise- so save your money and try that.

35

[quote]SteelyD wrote:
Am I missing something about Janda situps? Is the whole idea to keep your feet flat on the ground while doing situps with knees bent @ 90 degrees or so?

I just wedge my feet under the couch and the base of the couch keeps my feet and toes pinned. Is that essentially what the Pav thingy does?[/quote]
Even if you don’t buy his book, in the free user guide instructions on the site: http://www.dragondoor.com/pdf/p12_quickstart.pdf

He explains why this is different. Putting your toes underneath the couch is an anchor that allows you to use your hip flexors to pull with. It’s the exact reverse of what the device does. The explanation’s on page 2.

[quote]Racarnus wrote:

When you squat, antagonists (quads and hamstrings) are both active. So much for antagonists can’t be active at the same time.

And why can’t you learn the motor control to avoid tensing up adjacent muscles? Pavel says your biceps will flex when you make a white knuckle fist. I was able to make my muscles white without any bicep tension.

And the hips DO flex during this pavelized situp. So the hip flexors couldn’t have been shut off. Yes, there are other hip flexors besides the psoas, but why would this exercise shut off the psoas and not the remaining hip flexors?[/quote]

I can’t remember which book, but I remember there was an explanation about how reciprocal inhibition works differently for compound movements versus isolation movements. As in, when you’re only bending in one direction (in this case, it’s all forward flexion of the spine/hips) it works differently than when different joints are flexing and extending (like with pulling or pushing movements that can handle huge weights). In the case of a squat, it seems like the quads inhibit the hamstrings functioning as a knee flexor (though it still does this a little bit to help the quads relax enough to sink down) but especially on the way up, it converts the hamstrings to working as a hip extensor. It’s like they stabilize the movement and their function changes as needed or something. I don’t understand it very well.

I think you’re right, you can learn to use muscles in isolation and diminish irradiation, but the key is “learn” in that I guess it’s not what we instinctively do. Avoiding instincts is difficult, and he even relies upon harnessing them to make us stronger, so teaching to relax when trying to be strong could be tricky… so I guess that’s why harnessing nerve system tricks to deactivate the muscles might be a simpler approach than trying to learn muscle isolation which takes a very attentive willpower.

The final question about selective hip flexor deactivation’s a good one… I don’t fully understand it. What I figure is… he wants you to shut off ALL the hip flexors in the first part of the movement and use the abs alone. Then, one the spine is flexed as much as possible with the abs, is the point where you can then use hip flexors to continue moving up. At that point, you’re right, I’m not really sure why the psoas wouldn’t pull…

[quote]Enjoy The Pain wrote:
Well, I think trying to isolate the abs is stupid anyway. I thought Pavel was against isolation work? To me it makes much more sense to do exercises like squats, deadlifts, standing overhead presses and rollouts, maybe hanging leg raises, dragon flags and front levers. You abs will contract maximally but also work in conjunction with the hip flexors.[/quote]
He does encourage all these things in the book. The Janda crunch/situp is something done before to help strengthen the abs and wake them up because he thinks they’re inactive or weak in too many people. Once they’re strengthened is when it’s advocated to move on to using in unison via dragon flags and such.

[quote]Cprimero wrote:
In one of his newsletters pavel refers to the “full contact twist”-(Stick the end of a barbell in a corner and pivot)as his favourite ab excercise- so save your money and try that.[/quote]
I think that’s because Pavel lurvs oblique exercises, they stand out in an age where there are a lot of bodybuilder memes like “avoid oblique moves to keep your hourglass shape” and such. This is a spine twisting motion and the crunches are a front flexion motion and side bends are a side flexion motion, so all 3 seem like good ab/oblique things to train (plus obviously stuff like various deadlifts and all for the spinal extension, etc).