5 Exercises I Do Every Week for Strong Abs Over 40 (NO SITUPS!)

Have you been doing sit-ups religiously and just not seeing or feeling those results that you're looking for? Good news! No more cranking your neck and straining your back to try to get those abs you want. It's not working anyway. I'm going to share what does work, the exercises I've been doing through my 40s, 50s, and now 60s to strengthen and sculpt killer abs. And you can do them too. Now, these moves are going to help you maintain a rock-solid core, which is going to help you improve your posture and help you stay injury-free. All of that is critical so you can age powerfully. So first thing is, let's talk anatomy. First up, rectus abdominis. I think of these as those long abs. They go from your ribs to your pubic bone and they have bands across them. And that's what that six-pack is. It's actually the bands that are holding it in. So that's the first part. Then we have internal and external obliques. These are your front and side muscles. These are gonna help us twist, and the internal and external work opposite to help you twist. Then we have your transverse abdominis. When you hear people talk about upper and lower abs, it's actually not correct. We have our long abs, the rectus abdominis, and then you have your deep abs. That's your transverse abdominis. When people think of those abs that are really gonna help you hold everything in tight, I think of the combination of your rectus and those deep stabilizer abdominals. Now, Of course, there's one more piece to your core, and that's the muscles of your spine that help you extend and move laterally. So those are all down your spine. So we wanna think about all of these, and when we think about working all of these, we've gotta think about working them in 3 different planes. The first plane is when you do bending forward and back, that's called flexion and extension, and that's called your sagittal plane. But just think of it as forwards and backwards. The second one is when you move to the sides, that's your lateral plane. And then the third one is your twisting, and that's your transverse plane. And again, we wanna make sure we work all of those because here's what happens when you do sit-ups. What are you doing? Working one, and you're probably not even working any extension. But here's the thing that's most important. When you're training, you're training not to get better at training, Like, who cares if you can do really good sit-ups? You're training to get better at life, right? And so the reality is, with whatever you're doing, whether it's push-ups— because think about push-ups, those are a plank— whether it's squats, when you're doing a squat, right, your abdominals need to be really contracted. So does your erector spinae, so does your extensors of your back. Your bent-over rows, when I'm doing those, same thing. I've got my back muscles working, I'm pulling in my abs. All of these are going to work your core too. So the reality is I don't focus a lot on doing core exercises. I focus on using my core all throughout my exercise and throughout my life because just like I showed you those exercises, think about what you're doing in everyday life, picking up groceries. What are you using? Better be using your quads and your core, right? Or picking up anything. So ideally your core is gonna be working all the time. However, I'm going to throw in some core-focused exercises, things that I like to do, and I especially like to do them when I'm doing my leg workouts. Quite often I'll split up and I'll do my upper body pushing and pulling one day and my hip and thigh hinging the next. And when I'm doing my hip and thigh hinging, that's where I love to throw in my core workout. And I'm going to show you some fun things that you can do. Well, fun, I think fun, it'll be fun, fun in a painful kind of way, but fun things you can do by using a big exercise ball and a medicine ball. And these are two inexpensive things that you can have at home. And why I really like to use a medicine ball and a big ball, first of all, with this big ball, you could also use something called a Bosu ball. That's a half ball. But the reason I like using a big ball or a Bosu ball is because you're going to be able to extend your spine over the ball. And when you do that, you are going to get better range of motion, and which means you're going to be able to better recruit, better work your muscles. So that is why we're using that. Plus it adds in a little bit of instability. So that's gonna make your core have to work with balance. And that's really important cuz you know what, in life we are not bolted to the floor, are we? Balance is mission critical, especially as we age. So the first exercise I'm gonna show you is a pullover and I'm gonna show you how to do this using a big ball and a medicine ball. So these are two things you're gonna wanna get and I will put, make sure that you have access to how you get these things inexpensively cuz they're really great to have around the house. Okay. So first thing about a ball. I'm sitting on a ball that has a little bit of give. It's not rock hard. And my hips and knees, I'm a little bit above a right angle. You don't want to be sinking down into the ball and you want to have a little bit of give because that's going to help with balance. So that's part one. And then I'm walking out. Now what's important here is I'm going to walk out and drop my hips a bit, and then I'm going to push my tailbone back against the ball. Now I'm coming back and I'm going to come back as far as I can again to stretch the muscles. And I'm really anchoring between my heels and my tailbone, and I'm going to come up and touch my knee, and I'm going to come up and touch my knee. And what you're going to find when you do this is that you really have to make sure that you are anchored between your heels and your tailbone. Otherwise you are going to fall off the ball. The ball will either shoot out from under you or you will just fall off the ball. Neither one of those things are things you want to do. So I'm using a medicine ball that is pretty light to start, but I would tell you, you want to be using one the heaviest weight that you can handle to do anywhere from 10, 8 to 30 repetitions. So what's happening as I'm doing this exercise? Couple different things. Number one, I am doing a pullover, which actually works my lats and something called your serratus anterior. If you've seen these muscles right up here, kind of above the six-pack, that is the serratus anterior. That works here too, but I'm using my rectus abdominis because I have to come all the way up. So this is something that's— even though I'm coming to either knee, it's not a big twist, so it's really much more of a frontal plane activating a little bit of my twisting muscles as well, but really focusing more on my rectus abdominis here. Next one, I want to pull in my internal and external obliques. And so what I'm going to do here is— first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to get into what's called a boat pose in yoga. Now I can do this a couple different ways. I can do this here. I could also make it a little harder here, but I'm going to start here with my legs down. And even just being here, by the way, I am now having to isometrically contract my rectus abdominis. When I add a twist, now I'm using my internal and external obliques. And by the way, this doesn't look hard. Just wait until you try it. So the next thing you could do to make it harder, and now I've really got my balance in place too, as you can see, is to go to a full boat. So whichever way you want to do it, There you go. You will have screaming abs pretty darn quickly. And again, on this one, I've got rectus abdominis, and then I've got internal, external, internal, external. Because wherever you go, when I'm twisting this way, it would be internal, external, internal on my right side, external on my left, and then vice versa. They work together either side. So there you go. And again, with these, use the weight so you can do anywhere in the 6 to 30 range. And I tend to do abs at about, you know, more in the 12 to 20 range. And if you can do that, then just start challenging it more. You can even go all the way up to a full V-up if you can hold it. Next up is a wood chop. Now this is where you go from low on one side, high to the other. And what's important here is I'm not twisting my whole body, right? I'm not doing this. Nope. Everything's stable between my heels and my tailbone. And I'm just rotating up as if my upper torso is all one piece. So I'm really using a lot of my— again, this is a twisting motion, so internal and external obliques are working it. And so you do it to one side to fatigue, and then once you've done that, switch to the other. One note on when you do exercises to one side or the other: make sure that you don't always start with your dominant side, which is what we tend to do, because then it will always have the better result, right? Because you're going to come into the other one a little fatigued. So switch it up. If you're always a right side starter, sometimes start on the left. Okay, those are wood chops. All right, so we haven't done anything lateral yet. Now I will tell you, I'm going to show you this not with my feet up against the wall. However, I would highly recommend that you do this and where my feet are, wedge yourself against a wall. So it'll be way easier if you just wedge yourself against a wall. And here's how you're going to do this. You're going to do this, this way. So I am side over because you can see my feet are slipping. And then to do it even harder, you do your arms extended. Because remember, the further the weight is from your axis of rotation, the harder the exercise gets. So this is easier. This is easier. And this is harder. And again, a lateral exercise. And then you will switch sides. And notice again how I have my top leg in front, my bottom leg to the back. Otherwise, if you try it the other way, you will end up falling over. Ask me how I know that. Okay, so that's the easier And again, that's the harder. And at some point you can actually grab a medicine ball and do it this way too. So you can continue to make these things harder as you get stronger. All right, my final one is a knee pull-in. So here's what you do. You're going to walk out and then what you're going to do here, first of all, stable core. So no sagging, right? My abs are pulled up right now. I'm using both the transverse abdominis and my rectus abdominis to really contract, but I'm especially using that transverse, which is important for stability. Right here is hard enough. And what's cool about this is a lot of balance has to take place, but this is not the exercise, though it might feel like it. This is the exercise. So it is a knee pull-in. Think of it kind of like a reverse sit-up. And we've got a lot of stuff going on. We've got the plank, we've got balance, and then we're having to use the rectus to pull in the knees. So there you have it. All you need is the big ball. Generally, if you're like 5'6" or below, it's a 55cm. More than that, a 65cm. And again, you want to blow it up just a little squishy. Then you'll want to have a medicine ball. If you're just starting out, maybe get a 3 kg medicine ball or a 5 to 6 lb medicine ball, and you'll go up from there. This is a great thing to throw into your training once or twice a week, especially when you're doing hips and thighs. And if you're going, all right, I am ready, I've got a free 8-week training plan that you can get at jjvirgin.com/power. Now you probably heard that great abs are made in the kitchen. Because reality is you got to be lean to be able to see your abs. So next up, see how to drop your belly fat so you can make sure that your six-pack isn't hidden underneath all that belly fat.