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Sculpt a ripped six pack here - http://athleanx.com/x/sculpted Subscribe to this channel here - http://bit.ly/2b0coMW If you are the type that does not get sore from your abs workout, then you need to see this. The sore in 6 minutes series continues with the ab workout edition. With just a few ab exercises and a single weight plate, I’m going to show you how to train your abs hard enough to elicit post workout muscle soreness regardless of how difficult it is for you to do right now and more importantly…get a six pack. As you will see, there is no substitute for hard work. This ab workout works by trading in workout length for intensity. The sooner you are able to convince yourself that your effort will determine the ultimate development of your abs the faster you will be able to get that to happen. That said, it’s time to describe exactly what you need to do in this workout for your abs. Begin by laying on the floor and reaching over head to grab hold of something you can anchor your arms to. The first ab exercise is one that you will use to overload your lower abs eccentrically. It’s called the dragon thrust. Roll your back towards your head and thrust your legs out while lifting your entire butt and back off the floor at the same time. Slowly lower your legs to the ground and repeat for 45 seconds. The lower the angle of your legs as you straighten them, the harder this ab exercise becomes. Next you will perform the thread the needle exercise on one side for 45 seconds. Here you want to try and prevent over rotation of your core while reaching under your body as far as you can and then regaining the starting position. Be sure to keep your transverse abdominis activated to hold your core tight as you perform this entire ab exercise. Next, select a weight plate that you will be able to perform at least 10 reps with of the crunch plate press exercise. On a decline bench, anchor your feet and then press the plate you are holding straight up overhead. From here, slowly lower your body back down the bench and prevent over extension by contracting the abs hard and eccentrically controlling with the upper abs. Pull the plate to your chest, sit up and then repeat for 45 seconds. Finally, perform the cliffhanger climbers for 30 seconds. This is a mountain climber variation that is performed with your arms out in front of you much more to increase the demand on your abs and core. This position would normally want to make your body extend, but you want to work extra hard to prevent that from happening as you hold your plank tight and work your abs more than ever. Take a 15 second break and then repeat the entire sequence one more time for a total of a 6 minute ab workout. For a complete program that hits not just your abs but every muscle in your body while training you like an athlete, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Start putting science behind the strength and trade in workout length for intensity (and results) with the same program used by today’s top pro athletes. For more abs workouts and exercises for your abs to get a six pack, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Follow this meal plan for more gains - http://athleanx.com/x/meals Subscribe to this channel here - http://bit.ly/2b0coMW When you are eating to build muscle, you’ve got to avoid two big diet mistakes if you want to gain appreciable amounts of muscle. The first is to stop using the word diet. This implies a short term solution when what you really need is a long term, lifetime approach to eating. The second is to stop listening to the age old advice of “eat big, get big” since it just is not true. In this video, I show you the real problem that is keeping you or someone you know too skinny. Often times it has nothing to do with the amount of calories that are being taken in on a daily basis, but rather the quality of the calories that are being eaten. I’m going to show you real world examples of how this plays out time and time again. Using myself as the example, and hardgainer Jesse as well, you will get to see exactly what I ate as a child that was holding back the gains I was supposed to be seeing. To begin, most skinny guys are eating enough calories. I know, shocking huh? It isn’t some super high metabolism that is keeping them skinny. That helps a bit, but more importantly, there is a dearth of quality calories coming in that often times derails the pursuit of muscle growth. A true muscle building diet should contain high amounts of each food, but only after the quality of that food is secured. Muscle building diets should consist of the standby ingredients like oatmeal, vegetables, protein sources, etc. That said, the type of diet plan that I show you here (with a sample breakfast) is devoid of most of these let alone vitamins, minerals and good overall dense calories. This can be fixed however, if you allow for a bit of a transition time rather than trying to reach your goal right away. The problem most people make is trying to make too large of a change right away. Instead, what you want to do is see if you can identify a middle ground between how you are currently eating and how you know you should be eating. If you can do this, you can more easily take steps to start eating more in line with where you want to go rather than forcing yourself to try and adopt this completely foreign way to feed yourself. Remember, if it feels too much like work, then your mind is eventually going to treat it like work and sooner or later you are going to want to “call in sick”! Eat like an athlete and treat your food as fuel and you will realize just how important good nutrition is to your overall development and performance. If you want a complete step by step, meal by meal eating plan to go along with your daily workouts, head to http://athleanx.com and get your ATHLEAN-X Training System. For more videos on how hardgainers should workout to build muscle as well as meal plan videos on what to eat to build muscle, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Real science gets unreal results here - http://athleanx.com/x/unreal-results Subscribe to this channel here - http://bit.ly/2b0coMW The bench press is one of the most popular upper body exercises that you can do. That said, there are many different ways to perform the movement and many different theories on the best way to do the lift for best strength and chest size gains. In this video, I’m kicking off a new series where we look at the broscience and advice you have been given or overheard at the gym to see if there is any merit to what it commonly accepted as fact. We start by looking at the bench press exercise done with your feet off the ground and either held up in the air or supported on the surface of the bench. Those that perform this variation will argue that doing the bench this way will increase the instability of the exercise in the effort of making your core stronger (in order to stabilize your body on the bench). Next, they will say that this is a safer way to bench as it will flatten your lower back and help you to avoid overarching which can damage the back. Finally, they will say that performing the bench press this way you will see more activation of your chest and get a bigger chest from doing this. Let’s look at them one by one shall we. The first claim that doing the exercise this way will create instability and more of a demand on your core to maintain your position on the bench is actually one hundred percent true! This does happen. That said, it’s also one hundred and fifty percent stupid! The bench press is not an exercise in which you should be interested in testing the limits of your core stability. If you are under the bar and trying to press serious weight, making yourself more likely to tip over is not very wise and something that should be saved for more specific core exercises that will do a better job anyway. The next thing is that by flattening the lower back (by putting your legs up in the air), you are helping to increase the safety of your low back during the bench press. This is actually opposite of what is true. Lumbar stability comes from having the back in a slightly arched position (as in performing deadlifts and bent over rows). Ignoring this when benching is the fastest way to either ruin your back or more likely, your shoulder. By pressing with a flat back and your feet up or on the bench, you are anteriorly tilting your shoulders at the same time. This creates a bad angle for pressing and can easily damage your AC joint in your shoulder on even one bad repetition. Instead, you want to keep those feet on the floor and learn to press with them to create a counter force for your press. You also want to learn how to pinch the shoulders back and down while you arch to create a counter pressing surface for your chest. This only becomes possible when you keep your feet on the ground and arch your chest. Finally, the bench press performed this way does not engage the chest more. In fact, it likely hits it less. Without the pre stretch afforded to you by proper positioning of the shoulders in the feet on the ground press, you simply won’t activate as many chest muscle fibers and create the overload necessary to safely stimulate more pec growth. It’s tips like these that can wind up starting out helpful but hurting you in the long run. This new series was created for the sole purpose of looking through each of the most popular bro-science tips to see what is truth and what is fiction. For a complete workout program based in nothing but science, head to http://athleanx.com and get your ATHLEAN-X Training System. For more videos on the best ways to build muscle and how to build muscle fast, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://yo

Get abs year round - http://athleanx.com/x/abs-365 Subscribe to this channel here - http://bit.ly/2b0coMW Getting six pack abs just got easier than you think, well at least the impact that a strong six pack can make on the appearance of your core. In this video, I’m going to show you how it’s not all about the abs. In fact, a six pack without an equally impressive set of obliques and serratus is going to look nothing like you imagined it would when you first established your goal of having a ripped six pack. To understand this concept better it helps to know a bit more about the anatomy of the three core muscles in question. Let’s start with the six pack muscle. This is more formally known as the rectus abdominis. This is the muscle that becomes visible when someone is said to have a six pack stomach. The linea alba is a sheath of connective tissue that lies on top of this muscle and helps to compartmentalize the abs into their individual blocks or packs. Just to the left and right of the 6 pack however is perhaps the most important muscle of the core. The obliques are not just important for function and the many demands of rotation of the midsection but even more importantly for the tapering of the abs. The orientation of the obliques is at an angle which helps to frame in the six pack and create a visual narrowing of the waist as you look at the abs from top to bottom. Finally, the serratus anterior is a muscle that sits just atop the obliques and has a similar downward and inward diagonal fiber orientation. Again, when developed and trained, this muscle has the ability to taper in the midsection and give you the appearance of much more muscle definition even if your abs aren’t as developed or defined as you would like. It is easy to hit all three of these in one movement. If you lie on your side as if you were about to perform a side crunch you only need to worry about the position of your top arm to get this working for you in a whole new way. Instead of grabbing onto the back of your neck with your hand, reach across your body and parallel to the floor as you reach the top of your side crunch exercise. Squeeze your obliques as you reach as far forward as you can at the top. This added reach is what activates the serratus and can give you a very developed looking core. This is very similar to the benefits seen during a pushup plus exercise that is designed to hit the serratus and not just your chest. Here, the combination of the two movements gives you the detail you may have overlooked in an effort to focus solely on the more attention getting abs. If you are looking for a complete program that includes all the workouts and meal plans needed to get you your best looking abs and midsection ever, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Start training like an athlete and use the same program that today’s top pros and celebrities turn to when they need fast and lasting results. Finally, if you want more videos on six pack ab workouts and exercises for your abs to get you ripped, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Build strength and muscle here - http://athleanx.com/x/strength-muscle Subscribe to this channel here - http://bit.ly/2b0coMW If you want to know how to get a stronger lower back you have to first figure out a way to make sure the low back doesn’t have to work alone. In this video, I show you how the lower back gets a major assist from the glutes in helping you to get strong and remain strong in your pursuit of building bigger muscles, safely. The lumbar spine or lower back is an area not known for much motion. In fact, it is supposed to be a stable area that is less susceptible to injury and able to hold up to the rigors of heavier lifting and training. If your lower back is asked to do too much work, it can easily break down and leave you on the sideline unable to get to the gym and train. In order to work to its best, the low back has to get assistance from the glutes to help with extension of the posterior chain from the bottom up as well. In this video, I show you 4 exercises that you can do that will tie in both the lower back and the glutes to get you stronger than ever. The best part about these lower back exercises is that they require you have no equipment at all. This allows you to do these anywhere at any time. The key is to activate the muscles of the low back and glutes together, which we do on all four exercises, and then hold them for a longer duration. The muscles of the low back are asked to fire for long periods of time throughout the day. Often, they have become dormant and underactive because of prolonged sitting. In order to keep them strong, it is important to regularly train these muscles and help to improve the endurance of them. The four exercises shown here, will do just that and they will help you to do it without requiring any expensive or elaborate back extension machines or equipment. The first two low back exercises are performed on your back. Position your feet on the outside edges with your knees bent and then bridge up as high as you can. You want to be sure that you are contracting both your lower back and your glutes at the same time. The positioning of the feet allow you to activate the glute medius, a hip external rotator and muscle that feeds into the pelvis as well. Hold at the top for 5 seconds and repeat for 10 reps. Move onto the single leg lat bridges. Here you want to engage the muscles of the back that feed down into the lower back and pelvis from the top. Drive your elbows into the ground and squeeze up into the bridge. From here, extend one leg out straight for 5 seconds and then the other for 5 seconds. Repeat for 10 reps. Perform the final two exercises of this lower back workout to get a strong low back by rolling onto your stomach. Both of these will challenge your ability to maintain both a glute and lower back contraction while moving your arms. See if you can make it through the 10 reps on each of these as well. If you want to look like an athlete you have to train like an athlete. This is something that I say all the time. One of the things that this means is that you overlook nothing in your training because you or someone you train with has led you to believe that it isn’t important. There are no un-important muscle groups. Train them all, in a systematic way and you will look and feel better than you ever have in your life. For a complete training program that does this, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. For more videos on how to get a strong lower back and the best low back exercises after hurting your lower back, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Hardgainers become gainers here - http://athleanx.com/x/gain-muscle Subscribe to this channel here - http://bit.ly/2b0coMW A chest workout for hardgainers must do more than just advise you to train heavy. Heavy lifting is important for hardgainers to begin to build muscle mass and size, however it isn’t the only key element of shoulder training. In this video, I’m going to show you how important it is to learn how to lift lighter on certain exercises and how to lift heavier on the right chest exercises, if you want to start adding serious size fast to your chest or pecs. Before even getting started however, one of the most effective chest workout tips I could give anyone (not just a skinny guy looking to add muscle) is to train shirtless. Now of course, this advice is best followed if you are training in the comfort of your own home gym! That said, many hardgainers find themselves in this exact situation because they feel self conscious about going to the gym and training in front of the much larger and more muscular guys. When you train without a shirt, you not only face your insecurities but you allow yourself a chance to watch your muscles as they work and use the visual feedback to more accurately focus your effort on the muscles you are actually trying to build. Let’s face it, if you are a beginner lifter or are not carrying large amounts of muscle you are likely not mastering the mind muscle connection with the muscles you are trying to develop. You don’t have the “feel” of what the muscle is supposed to feel like that you are training. Training shirtless allows you to watch the muscle contract and therefore tweak your form to enable a stronger contraction in the target muscles. When you do this, you will be surprised just how much quicker you can get that muscle to respond. Next, you will want to start with a few chest exercise activation tips to help you build a bigger chest. The most important thing you can learn how to do is to press with your chest and not your front delts or shoulders. This is easier said than done. You can learn how to activate the often dormant scapular muscles that increase your awareness of how this should feel by starting with a few sets of scapular hanging pulls. From here, do some standing barless chest presses to ensure that your shoulders are staying back and that the press is coming from the chest muscles. You will then head to the bench press where you will face your typical hardgainer insecurity of the amount of weight that is on the bar that you are pressing. The big mistake is to think that it is not macho to be benching lighter weights. This doesn’t matter since trying to push weights you can’t handle will do nothing to help your chest grow. Start with a weight you can control and learn to press it correctly with your chest instead of your shoulders. That said, heavy weight lifting is important for overloading the muscles of a hardgainer to build more muscle size and strength. We can do that with the use of touch up sets. These allow you to feel the heavier weights (generally 20 percent heavier than what you will use in your working sets of 6-8 reps). Just unrack the weights a few times and rack them again to feel what it is like. From here, perform one touch up set with the pins set high to allow you to get as many reps and then safely let the bar rest on the pins. You have neurologically awakened your muscles to the heavier weight and allowed your body to become more confident in the weight you will use for your working sets. The tips shown here are just a few of the best ways to build a bigger chest with your chest workouts. The complete ATHLEAN-X Training System available at http://athleanx.com is a step by step 90 day program that will t

Train & Recover Here - http://athleanx.com/x/train-hard-gain-harder ATHLEAN-X on Instagram Here - http://instagram.com/athleanx One of the most common workout questions is what to do on non-workout or off days. In this video, I’m going to show you a few exercise options you have if you absolutely must do something on those days when you aren’t scheduled to be in the gym. Keep in mind, your time away from the gym is paramount to the success you will see in it. Muscle recovery is one of the most important things you can prioritize in your training. That said, if you are going to look for something to do on your off days you first have to identify your goal. If you are a hardgainer or skinny guy that is struggling to put on muscle mass you will want to do everything in your power to focus mostly on eating and resting on your off days. Doing extra cardio is not the prescription for adding muscle if you are already struggling to do so. If you are looking for an activity to do, you will want to focus on those things that prioritize explosive or athletic actions without the long duration component. So think about how you can be explosive without lifting heavy weights or those that have a high eccentric component. Things like a sled push or battle ropes can be great ways to get your heart rate up quickly without turning your workout into too much of an aerobic one. Along those same lines you can choose to do ball slams. This exercise does not have a heavy eccentric overload component and makes for an activity that you will not have a hard time recovering from. If you do this in a repetitive fashion (30 to 40 slams as quickly as you can with minimal breaks or rest), then you are going to gain the benefits of the conditioning of this without overloading the muscles beyond their ability to recover. If on the other hand your goal is fat loss and you need to lose excessive weight, then your “off” day could provide you with a great opportunity to accumulate some additional volume that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to get in your 5 days of training. Here is where something like a steady state cardio option (running, walking, biking, etc) is going to work best since the intensity will be much lower than during a preferential HIIT session which will allow you to build up some extra minutes burning calories. Regardless of your path you will always want to prioritize your recovery and do so with the help of good nutrition and supplementation. Here is where you can excel if you already have not dialed this area in. The ATHLEAN-Rx supplement lineup has Reconstruxion as it’s primary muscle recovery supplement. This is the choice of professional athletes who must be able to recover between games to maximize consistency of performance throughout the season. Watch your workouts and your results improve by visiting http://athleanrx.com and try the exact same edge the pros are using. For more videos on how to recover from your workouts and which supplements are best for muscle recovery be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

All gains, no pain, one program - http://athleanx.com/x/the-plan Subscribe to this channel here - http://bit.ly/2b0coMW Years back I threw the upright row exercise into my 5 worst exercises of all time, and buried it in my iron graveyard. Today, I’m revisiting the upright row and all its variations to see if it needs to be dug up or buried even deeper as I cover my “World’s Most Dangerous Exercises”, continuing right here at the shoulder joint. When I included this originally, I gave my reasons for doing so. Remember, there is no personal axe to grind for me against any particular exercise or movement. I start out with a blank slate with them all and unless given a reason to dislike them…love them all! As a physical therapist, I am trained to look at an exercise on its own merit and determine whether it is something that is safe first and foremost and capable of producing results. In the case of the upright row, this shoulder exercise is one that needs to remain six feet under. Here’s why. The anatomy of the shoulder joint is such that there is a limited amount of space above the ball (in the ball and socket) for the bone itself as well as the other many important structures such as the rotator cuff tendons, bursa, and biceps tendon. When the shoulder joint is internally rotated (as you do with the upright row) you are rotating the greater tuberosity on the humerus directly into the joint, leaving less room for all of these structures. If on the other hand you externally rotated your upper arm at the shoulder joint, you would do the exact opposite. External rotation at the shoulder joint creates extra room for the ball to move within the socket and still leave room for the other structures mentioned before. When performing the upright row exercise however, you are forcing your shoulder joint not only into internal rotation but you are combining it with elevation. This simply does not anatomically sit well or rank as a safe motion (especially when you consider the repetitive nature in which you do it from set to set, workout to workout. Changing the hand position to be wider and using an ez curl bar, while slight improvements, do not come close to fixing the problem. The only way to overcome the inadequacy of the upright row is to stop using barbells and instead use dumbbells and perform something called the high pull. The high pull allows you to get your hands up and back behind your body when you lift them. This is due to the external rotation that can be obtained at the shoulder joint rather than the negatively impacting internal rotation. Because the dumbbells are not fixed in place or connected via a bar that cannot pass through your body, you can maneuver them this way to get the relief the shoulder joint is looking for to make this exercise safe. Mobility doesn’t solve the issue either. Increasing shoulder mobility at the expense of stability in a different part of the shoulder is not solving the problem. The bottom line is, this exercise is a bad exercise that deserves to stay buried in the iron graveyard. There are many other options for developing the delts and certainly the traps. For a complete workout plan that puts the science back in strength to give you your greatest muscle gains without unnecessary joint pain, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. For more videos on the 5 worst exercises as well as the best shoulder exercises for a shoulder injury, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Get more from every workout - http://athleanx.com/x/activate Subscribe to this channel here - http://bit.ly/2b0coMW The dumbbell bench press is one of the most classic chest exercises you can do to build a bigger chest. That said, it is not the chest alone that powers the dumbbells up on every rep. The shoulders and triceps are very much involved in assisting with the exercise as well. This can be a problem however when either one of these ancillary muscle groups starts to take over the movement and takes away from the contribution of the chest muscles. In this video, I am going to show you how to influence the amount of work that is being done by the chest during the exercise with just a few simple tweaks to your hands. By simply adjusting the way that you hold the dumbbells and how you move your hands through space as you press the dumbbells, you can greatly impact the muscle group that takes on the brunt of the work during this popular chest building exercise. In order to hit the chest more during the db bench press you are going to want to lead with your thumbs during the press. What does that mean? It means that as you press the dumbbells up over your chest you are going to want to tilt them ever so slightly so as your thumbs are pointing up towards the ceiling and your pinkies are tilting downward. This will have the effect of letting the inner half of the dumbbell raise higher than the outer half. It is important to point out that you are going to want to do this from a position of your hands facing forward during the press, not towards each other. The reason why this alteration in the position of your hands has such a profound effect on the muscles in your chest is because of what it does to the upper arms when pressing. By having your thumbs ride upwards as you press the dumbbells up, you are getting your biceps to get closer to each other during the ascent. This has the effect of increasing horizontal adduction at the shoulder which is a key component of chest activation. On the other side of this however is that fact that if you do the same exact movement with your thumbs but out of a neutral (or palms facing each other) grip, you would be doing the opposite of what you are trying to do. Here you would be activating your front deltoid muscle substantially more. For most of us, this is the exact thing we are trying to avoid during the dumbbell bench press. If you feel most of the work being done by your shoulders during a bench press you will definitely want to avoid the neutral grip position as well as the changes and cheats to your wrist placement during the press. Finally, if you have a bad shoulder and you feel too much pain in the joint during the bench press you can try the variation that I show here last. In this case you want to lead with your pinkies instead of your thumbs. This will take a lot of the strain off of the shoulder and shoulder capsule and instead let the triceps help out the chest to perform the movement. As I said, this is really useful if you don’t want to have to give up dumbbell bench pressing entirely because of shoulder pain. If you found this tip helpful and wish you could train with a complete program that has these tips and more built into it to help you get much more out of your training, be sure to head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. For more videos on how to get a bigger chest and the best home chest exercises for mass, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Get Jeff Cavaliere caliber arms here (using his system!) http://athleanx.com/x/cavaliere-caliber-arms Want to know how to get bigger arms in under 3 minutes? Watch this video and I show you one of the most effective workout methods for getting big biceps by performing the stretch reflex the right way! The technique shown here allows you to not only get a stronger contraction of the biceps on your incline curls but also how to create more muscle damage from which you can expect to add more significant size to your arms. During a biceps incline curl, you want to actively contract the triceps muscle so you reciprocally inhibit the biceps muscle. This allows you to enhance the degree of stretch placed on the bicep. From here you contract your biceps and complete the rep of the curl. This improved stretch will create more micro tears of the muscle fibers and also lead to a more forceful contraction. The mistake that most people make when doing their arm workouts and exercises is overlooking these set methods. Adding even just a few of these arm building techniques will greatly improve your chances of getting big arms (both biceps and triceps) while still keeping your workouts short. This is because you are trading workout length for intensity which is almost always a surefire way to answer the how to get big biceps question. Those wanting to know how to get bigger arms will definitely want to try using this technique in their next biceps workout. Now, we know that big arms aren't created solely by targeting the biceps so you'll want to be sure that you also hit those triceps with some high intensity sets as well. If you want a complete system of advanced training tips as well as day by day athletes to get you looking like a pro athlete (by training like one) then head to http://athleanx.com and get your ATHLEAN-X Training System. For more arm workouts and exercises for bigger arms, as well as nutrition and supplementation videos, be sure to subscribe to our youtube channel at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24