Four weighted ab exercises that build a stronger core than bodyweight alone. Progressive overload matters: add weight gradually to cable crunches, weighted decline sits, machine crunches, and weighted leg raises for visible results.
If you want a well defined, impressive looking six pack, yet you aren't incorporating weighted ab movements, then you need to watch this video. The majority of people approach ab training differently than they would muscles like the chest and the back. They often throw in a little bit of body weight ab training after every workout and stick to exercises like flutter kicks for high reps and and don't get me wrong, these exercises have their place in ab training as I'll mention later on in this video, but they don't provide the necessary overload needed to grow your six pack and make your abs pop out more. Yet people still judge the effectiveness of an ab exercise based on the burn sensation that they get when they do the exercise. But this burning sensation is pretty much meaningless. For example, stand with your back against the wall and bend your legs to 90 degrees and try to hold this position for as long as possible. You're going to get an intense burning sensation. But you probably don't think that this exercise is an effective exercise for building your quads. And a much better exercise will be weighted barbell squats or any other weighted exercise. And it's the exact same when it comes to ab training. Why should you train your abs differently than any other muscle? You want to progressively overload your ab training and the best and easiest way to do this is with weights. And once I started to incorporate weights into my ab training routine, I definitely saw a difference. I and I saw that my abs were actually able to pop out more than they used to. So in this video I'm going to be showing you guys the four best weighted ab exercises and how you can incorporate them into an ab workout routine that you can use. But keep in mind that getting down to a low enough body fat percentage to be able to see your abs in the first place is a must. You can do all the ab training you want, but it's not going to help you if you have a layer of fat that's covering your abs. Before I get started with the exercises, please support me by hitting that like button and hitting that subscribe button. It'll really help me out. Anyways, let's get started with the exercises. First exercise is hanging leg raises with a dumbbell between your feet, which is a great exercise for targeting your transversus abdominis while putting more emphasis on the lower portion of your abs. Simply hang on a pull up bar or any elevated bar. Grab a dumbbell between your feet or have someone place it there for you and try to bring your legs up to about 90 degrees while keeping them straight and without swinging your body. This is quite a difficult movement if you've never done it before, but luckily there are progressions to help you master this exercise over time. To start, you can do captain's chair leg raises with bent legs. And then once you can do that for around 15 reps straight, you can move on to doing it with straight legs. And once you can do that for 15 reps, you can move on to adding weight using a dumbbell between your feet. Then, once you feel comfortable, you can try out hanging leg raises and gradually add weight to this exercise. You want to gradually increase the weight you use or the reps you perform over time in order to continuously strengthen your abs. Second exercise is ab pull downs, which is a great exercise that once again targets your whole transversus abdominis, but emphasizes more of your upper abs. So you want to kneel one to two feet in front of the cable system. And after selecting an appropriate weight, hold the handle with both hands and keep your forearms around your neck. Then, by using your abs, you want to try and bring your elbows down towards your knees until your head just about touches the floor. And repeat this movement at the top position. You want your back to be straight or slightly arched to fully stretch the abs before you contract them. You can also do these with twists to the side as you come down like so, which will hit your oblique muscles as well. The third exercise is something called cable woodchoppers, which are a great way to exercise your obliques, and it helps with that feline. You want to focus on pulling the handle across and down your body by using your obliques. Keep your hips facing straight and don't let them rotate to ensure that you're using your obliques to move the weight. The final exercise is weighted oblique twists, which, as the name hints, will target your obliques. You can hold a dumbbell weight ball or pretty much any object that adds weight to the movement. Simply lay on the ground, raise your legs slightly in the air while keeping your back up, and repeatedly move the weight to each side of your body by using your obliques. If this is too difficult for you, then you can keep your feet planted on the ground and do this instead. Now for the best results. What you want to do is combine these weighted exercises with bodyweight ab exercises, which which can be used to train your abs to failure. For weighted exercises, you want to stick between 6 to 15 reps, and for bodyweight movements, you can do as many reps as possible and just go to failure. I prefer doing my ab exercises in a circuit routine to save time. Here's an example of a workout you can use exercise 1 weighted hanging leg raises for 6 to 15 reps exercise 2 AB pull downs for 6 to 15 reps exercise 3 cable woodchoppers for 6 to 15 reps and exercise 4 flutter kicks until failure. So basically you just go through all four exercises consecutively and then you take a minute or two to rest and repeat the circuit again four more times for the best results. You want to train your abs with a workout like this two to three times per week, which can easily be fit in at the end of other workouts. And that's basically it. I hope this video is clear and concise and helps you guys out. If you have any questions let me know in the comments below. And please don't forget, get to support me by giving the video a like subscribing to my channel and checking out some of my other videos. Thanks and I'll see you next time.
