ATHLEAN-X™

Get high definition abs fast - http://athleanx.com/x/get-shredded Subscribe to this channel here - http://bit.ly/2b0coMW Ab training and ab workouts are a bit of a mislabeled term. You should never just focus on your abdominals if you want your core to look as good and as shredded as it can. Instead, you need to focus on what I call the “holy trinity” of ab training. In this video, I show you a sequence of 3 exercises that you can do that will hit not just the six pack abs, but also the obliques and all important serratus anterior muscles as well. The reason you need to start focusing on these three muscles together is, most importantly, that they like to work in concert with each other. Very rarely will you find just one of these muscles working in isolation and at the exclusion of the other two muscles. Because of this, we want to see if we can select exercises for our ab workouts that help us train them all together or at least within the same series of movements. We start off with the easy one, the abdominals. At least, we think they are the easiest core muscle to target. That is, if we perform our ab exercises the right way. The first thing you want to consider regardless which ab movement you are performing is that one of the functions of the abs dynamically is to flex the spine. That means, unless you are getting flexion of the lumbar spine, you will not be accomplishing this in your ab exercises. The visual cue you should be thinking about in order to achieve this on every rep of your ab exercises in which you are raising the bottom half of your body towards your upper half (as in any hanging ab raise or lower ab exercise) is to show your butt to someone standing in front of you. If you simply lift your knees up without focusing on the trunk curl you will never activate your lower abs nearly as much as you can be. Instead, you will be focusing too much of your effort on your hip flexors. Do the lower ab raise or seated knee tuck as shown here for much better activation. Next, you want to hit those all important obliques. I have gone on record many times stating the importance of hitting the obliques hard if you want to really get a well developed and shredded looking midsection (provided your nutrition is on point of course). The very orientation of the fibers themselves allows for a well developed set of obliques to taper and visually narrow your waistline. You can do this with the twisting leg raise variation that I show you here. Make sure to work both sides of your obliques to ensure balance and a complete ab workout. Finally, the often overlooked serratus anterior muscles. These help in protraction of the arm away from the body, as in a pushup plus exercise. We can actually accomplish this by changing the orientation of our body while pushing away in one smooth and incredibly effective move. We call this one a slight tweak on our gymnast abs movement. Push up and away with your body and then tuck your pelvis up high to further tilt your body out over your hands. This will put your serratus on overdrive and help you to feel the difference it makes to recruit this dormant muscle into your ab training. This is just a glimpse of what it looks and feels like to train like an athlete. If you want to get those abs showing like never before and you don’t want to wait years for it to happen, head to http://athleanx.com and get the complete ATHLEAN-X Training System. Start training like an athlete and stop overlooking the little things in your training and workouts. You’ll be amazed at just how big those things become in the big picture of carving out your new body. For more ab workouts and ab exercises for a six pack, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://yout

Build a ripped, athletic body - http://athleanx.com/x/be-jacked Subscribe to this channel here - http://bit.ly/2b0coMW Performing 3 sets of 12 reps for the exercises your workout is likely killing your gains. Now, don’t get me wrong…I actually like the 10-12 rep range when it comes to building muscle and when the goal is muscle hypertrophy. The problem is, the focus is misdirected as it often times gets put on the number of reps and not the quality of the reps or the time it takes you to perform them. Let me explain. The genesis of the whole 10-12 rep recommendation for muscle growth actually came from the time under tension that that number of reps would equate to if you performed them with the right tempo. If you did an explosive one second up on the concentric portion of the lift and a slow eccentric lowering of 3 seconds on the way down (another way to increase the tension on the working muscle) then you would be at 4 seconds per rep which would equate to 40-48 seconds of tension in that set. Research shows that crossing the threshold of 45 seconds is important, and when paired with a high intensity effort which brings you to failure beyond this point can lead to more impressive muscle gains. What winds up happening however is that we don’t perform our reps at this speed and we end up performing them much faster. As you can see in this set of dumbbell incline bench press performed by Jesse, he finishes the set in just 26 seconds. But that is lost on most people that lift weights and train and instead they focus on the number of reps and doing anything they can to reach that goal number to determine whether or not their set was a success or conducive to new growth. Big mistake. If you were performing a set and noticed after completing three perfectly performed reps that there was no way you were going to be able to maintain that form for the entire set of 12 reps so you shortened your range of motion, that would be a critical mistake. What you wind up with is sub maximal reps at every point in along the way to twelve as explained in the video. Instead, you would want to accept the fact that you were not going to be able to make it and just do as many reps as you could until reaching failure. Each one would be performed as hard and with as most effort as you could generate. If the number wound up falling drastically short of the twelve that you set out to do you could always drop the weight on the subsequent sets to get you back into that range. If you picked a weight that happened to be too light and didn’t take you close to failure, you would want to continue to rep out no matter how many reps it took to eventually get you to failure and then adjust the weights up on a subsequent set. Alternatively you could stop the set at 12 reps if you knew you were far too light on the weights and consider it a warmup set and then adjust the weights up and start again. Either way, the point is not to focus on the number of the reps since after all, your muscles can’t count they can only feel tension. If you are skirting tension in an effort to reach a magic number I can guarantee you are shortchanging the amount of muscle that you can ultimately build in your workouts. Focus always on finding ways to direct more tension to the muscles that you are trying to grow instead of avoiding it and you will be much happier with your overall results. If you are looking for a complete workout and nutrition program that never takes the easy way out but delivers much more powerful results than those that do, head to http://athleanx.com and get your ATHLEAN-X Training System. See why when you train at a high intensity your workouts don’t have to be long to be effective. Start building muscle and making much faster ga

Build a ripped, athletic body - http://athleanx.com/x/be-jacked Subscribe to this channel here - http://bit.ly/2b0coMW If your triceps workout is not making your triceps feel sore after working them, there is a possibility that you aren’t training them hard enough. The sore in 6 series continues with a brutal tricep workout that is designed to push your muscles to the limit in just 6 minutes. By using the right tricep exercises at the right time, you will see just how much more effective you can be making your workouts. This one starts with two sets of dumbbells and an adjustable bench. You will put the bench on an incline and pick up the lighter of the two pairs of dumbbells. In general, this weight should be half of what you usually use for a 10-12 rep set of lying dumbbell tricep extensions. To kick this off you will be performing the lying tricep extension, except this time from an incline. The incline allows you to safely protect your shoulder from too much elevation, if you are someone that experiences shoulder pain and discomfort. This tricep exercise is going to be performed in “21” style, with the first seven reps being done in the top of the range of motion, the second seven reps in the bottom of the range, and the final seven performed through the full range. Make sure to slow down the eccentric contraction on the full reps to really stress the long head of the triceps and overload the tension you deliver to the muscle. Once done, immediately transition to be face down on the same incline bench and grab the same pair of dumbbells just used. This time you will be performing a triceps dumbbell extension. Aim to keep the upper arm behind the body the whole time to maximize the shortening of the tricep muscle. If you can no longer perform reps during this one minute period, try to simply lock out the arms and hold them for the remaining time. Next grab the heavier set of dumbbells and lower the bench to a flat position. Lay back and perform the bench press / eccentric lowering tricep extension. The positive portion of the lift is used to assist your triceps in getting the weights into positoin for the next eccentric repetition only. Do as many as you can until your triceps can no longer safely control the weight. This whole circuit is then repeated one more time for a total duration of 6 minutes for this tricep workout. Remember, this is a brutally intense routine and is one that you do not want to do every time you workout your triceps. In fact, this is meant to be a plateau buster to shock your muscles into soreness without being a regular workout. All of the Sore in 6 workouts are to be looked at and treated that way. If you are looking for a step by step workout plan that tells you when to push the pedal for more intensity and when to dial it back a bit to prioritize recovery so you can build as much muscle as is naturally possible, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Meal plans and workouts are all included every day for 90 days to get you in your best shape ever by training like an athlete. For more videos on how to build bigger triceps and workouts for your triceps you can do at home or at the gym be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Get rock hard abs here - http://athleanx.com/x/chiseled-abs Subscribe to this channel here - http://bit.ly/2b0coMW Do you ever do your ab workouts with dumbbells? If not, then you could be missing out on a great way to etch in those deeper, more chiseled looking abs by not training your abdominals with enough resistance. Weighted ab workouts, like this one with dumbbells, can provide a great way to overload your abs and help get you out of the core training rut you might find yourself right now. To perform this ab workout, you will need a couple of sets of dumbbells. Start with a set that will be challenging for you to complete the ten reps required of you in each exercise, without it being too heavy that you cannot perform the moves in good form. Once you have identified this weight, drop down by five pounds each time and choose 3 more sets of dumbbells. You should have a total of 4 pairs of weights. Note, if your starting weight is such that you cannot select four pairs of dumbbells that is ok. You can complete your final sets using just your bodyweight. To begin, sit down and grab the heaviest pair of dumbbells. Perform a weighted Russian Twist with both dumbbells crossing over to one side and then the other. The key is to keep your abs tight and your core engaged to prevent overrotation or uncontrolled rotation. This is one of the most important functions of the abs and one that is sure to be tested by this first exercise. Complete 10 reps to each side and immediately move onto the next exercise in the workout. Next is the weighted Otis Up. In this ab exercise, you will lie flat on your back with the dumbbells extended overhead as if doing a bench press. In one move, you will sit up and keep the weights directed at the ceiling the entire time. Once you reach the full sit-up, slowly lower yourself back down to the floor with your abs eccentrically contracting to control the descent. Perform 10 reps of this move and proceed immediately to the next exercise in the workout. Next up is the single arm dumbbell rollout. This is a great exercise that challenges your abs eccentrically once again. Rest on one forearm and hold the dumbbell with the opposite hand. Roll the dumbbell away from you as you work to keep your abs tight and engaged the whole way out. Perform ten reps on each arm and proceed to the final exercise in this ab workout. Finally, wrap up this ab workout with dumbbells by getting into position to perform a one arm renegade row. In the pushup position and with a dumbbell in each hand, row each arm ten times making sure not to over rotate your torso as you pull the weight up. Perform on both sides. This is just the first round of this brutal ab workout however. From here, keep your rest to a minimum and grab the next set of dumbbells in line and repeat. See if you can make it to the end of this ab workout with dumbbells without needing to rest. For more ab workouts and over one hundred and five ab exercises to keep your abs constantly guessing, be sure to visit http://athleanx.com and check out the complete ATHLEAN-X Training System. Start training your abs like an athlete and see how much faster results can come by doing so. For more ab workout videos and exercises for abs that you can do at home, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Highest quality supplements. Used by today’s top professional athletes. http://athleanx.com/x/tested-trusted-true-supplements One of the most common questions asked is whether someone needs to take supplements in order to build muscle and see results. It is a good question and one that has two completely different answers depending on the person asking it. In this video, I explain to you 5 reasons you need to take supplements and when you never should take them. If you can’t deal with brutal honesty however, I would advise you not to watch, as some feelings may be hurt. To determine whether or not you are a candidate for supplementation you have to start with your experience level and current condition. If you are just starting out and are relegated to lifting 5 pound dumbbells for most of your exercises, you are likely not ready for supplements. You can gain far more benefits focusing on building up your strength and foundation while learning proper form and the best way to train than with stuffing your face with supplements. The same can be said if you have allowed your diet and nutrition to put you grossly overweight. Supplements are not your savior. You first must figure out how to rededicate yourself to your nutrition so that you can lose enough weight to make supplements a viable part of the discussion once again to take you and your results to the next level. Next you have to ask yourself if you are motivated enough to take supplements. Some people view supplementation as a way to be lax with the rest of their fitness and nutrition plan. They figure that as long as they are taking the supplements that they don’t have to worry much about everything else. Couldn’t be further from the truth. On the other hand, sometimes the act of supplementing makes you much more accountable for the rest of your actions. In this case, it can be a great advantage to helping you stay on track. If stress is a big part of your life, be it from your work or family, supplements can become even more necessary to help keep you on track and combat that. We all know that proper nutrition and fueling can go a long way towards helping your body fight fatigue and breakdown. If stress is heavy in your life then you would particularly want to look into supplements to help keep you healthy and consistent with your nutrition in the face of schedule disruption. Finally, ask yourself if you think that you can get all the benefits of supplements from food alone. If you think so, I can tell you in most cases you are wrong. For instance, there is simply no practical way to get as much creatine as you would need to experience its benefits from food alone. I said practical. Sure, you may be able to do it in theory, but when you consider the roadblocks that I present to you in the video you quickly realize this won’t work. For a complete supplement and nutrition line that is tested and trusted by today’s top professional athletes, be sure to head to http://athleanx.com/athleanrx and get your Rx Supplement bundle. Feel what a difference supplementation can make and see first hand how it can take your results to the next level. For more videos on bodybuilding supplements and if you need to take supplements to build muscle be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Gain muscle fast by training like an athlete here… http://athleanx.com/x/muscle-gaining-workout-plan When it comes to gaining muscle, it’s not just about the workouts and exercises that you do but how you do them. In this video, I cover this and many other muscle gaining mistakes that could be holding you back from building the mass you should be from your workouts. You don’t even have to be a beginner to benefit from this video, as many advanced lifters can still be making many of these mistakes. The first big workout or muscle gaining mistake is to overtrain. Now despite what you may have been told, overtraining is a very real thing that befalls many lifters during their attempts to build muscle mass fast. They fall for the concept of more is better not realizing that if they are going to attempt to lift without the assistance of ped’s then their capacity to recover will be limited. With a healthy respect for one’s ability to recover from hard workouts, you can carefully walk the line between overtraining and not overtraining and use that to build as much muscle as you can naturally. That said, the next mistake is even more rampant than the first and that is under training. Simply attending a gym does not grant you the right to build muscle. You actually have to put in the work when you are there if you want to see appreciable muscle gains. Many people will hit the gym and never bring enough intensity to their training to see their muscles grow and grow quickly. In fact, once you master the balance between over and under training you will see that it is actually not that difficult to tip in your favor. By trading in workout length for intensity you will be able to build muscle mass while working out less. Your increased exercise and workout intensity will lead to faster muscle growth and more time to allow your body to recover and grow back strong. Speaking of strong, no solid physique is built without becoming strong on your foundation exercises like the bench press, deadlift and squat. That said, many people who struggle to gain muscle are often the same people who skip out on doing these exercises. There is a valid reason for it. These exercises can be intimidating to those who lack the strength and technique to perform them. Opting for easier versions however like concentration curls and pushups is not the answer long term. Start performing these exercises and build your confidence with them and you will see your muscles build and grow as well. Nutritionally, eating either too few calories or not enough nutrient dense calories will derail your pursuit of more muscle. Nutrition is and always will be a very important part of the equation. If you want to gain muscle you need to have your diet plan and meal plans in place to support your new muscle growth. Stop thinking that just because you are getting in enough calories that you have the goods to grow muscle. You may not. If you don’t have enough quality, nutrient dense calories coming in you will find it almost impossible to gain muscle fast or at all. For a complete workout and nutrition program that helps you to gain muscle by training like an athlete, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. For more videos on how to build muscle fast and how not to be a skinny hardgainer, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Get in your best shape ever - http://athleanx.com/get-ripped Subscribe to this channel here - http://bit.ly/2b0coMW The biggest mistake people make when they do their ab workout is they spend too much time doing it. Spending any more than 10 minutes training your abs is a colossal error since it is extremely unnecessary in order to see results. Your abs respond best to hard, intense exercises done for a short period of time but done consistently over the course of many days. In this video, I’m going to show you a 7 minute ab workout that proves all you need is intensity and not length for good abs. This entire ab workout can be done on the floor without any equipment at all. It is going to cover all of the major functions of the ab muscles and incorporate other muscles of the core as well such as the obliques. The key is that you are going to move from one exercise to the next without resting. You earn one 30 second rest at the midpoint of the workout but that is it. If you keep the exercises moving you never give your abs a chance to breathe, so to speak. You apply the intensity and then step on the gas throughout the rest of the workout. This allows the workout to stay difficult even if the individual ab exercises themselves are not the most challenging that you have performed. This one starts with a bottom up movement (that also tends to incorporate a lot of rotation as well) and this is the figure 8. For the figure 8, you are literally doing what it says and moving your legs in the shape of an 8 laying on its side. This forces you to not blend two of the more challenging movement patterns into one exercise but does so when you are freshest and most capable of doing it uncompromised. Next you move onto the long leg windshield wipers. If this is too difficult for you, you can shorten the moment arm and bend the legs rather than keeping them straight. This essentially lightens the load felt by the abs and allows you to perform the exercise if the long leg variation is too difficult to maintain for the entire 60 seconds. This moves onto the twisting piston exercise. This is a plank variation but much more effective because of the dynamic nature of it. You not only have to have the strength to stabilize your body to avoid excessive movement here, but the plyometric aspect of the mini jumps, turns your core into a shock absorber as well and allows it to be much more functional at the same time. Finally, a well deserved 30 second rest break. Come out of the break and go right into the Starfish Crunch. This one is no joke! Keep both your arms and legs out wide as you perform this six pack exercise and twist to one side as you come up. This will be both a midrange and top down rotational movement, with the added benefit of hitting the oblique muscles as well. Finally, finish with 2 minutes of rotational ab circles. This one is the easiest to perform, but since we saved it for last in the ab workout, will feel much more difficult (and effective). Make sure you give this complete ab workout a try and see how much more you can do in just 7 minutes if you are applying your ab training principles properly. For a complete workout program and meal plan that includes this exact ab shuffle workout feature, be sure to head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Train your abs like a pro athlete and see how much stronger and more ripped they can become in the process. For more ab workouts and ab exercise videos, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Build a complete back with this workout - http://athleanx.com/x/the-complete-physique It won’t take long for you to see why I’m calling this the best back workout video ever. In fact, I’m putting the science back in strength in this one to show you not only how important it is to train every major muscle in your back but to not neglect some of the most commonly ignored muscles. With back exercise examples for how to attack each area, you’ll feel more prepared than ever to hit your next back workout with a new appreciation for back training. To start, it is important to break down the back into different zones. The most commonly focused on area is the lats. The lats are a large muscle group that get trained in every popular back workout. They can be hit with exercises like pullups, lat pulldowns, etc. Any exercise that adducts your arm and brings it into your sides is a good candidate for helping you build bigger lats. That said, you may feel a bigger stretch on the lats by performing an underhand version of the pulldown. As you can see, the anatomy of the lats explains how a larger stretch can be felt on them if you allow your elbow to travel in front of and away from your body. When doing a traditional lat pulldown the elbow stays in line with the torso which prevents the degree of stretch you feel in the alternative grip. The teres major is a muscle that assists the function of the lats. This muscle is also important for filling out the thickness of the back by sitting just above the latissimus dorsi. You can train this muscle more specifically by widening your grip during a lat pulldown. Keep your hands as far apart on the pulldown bar as you can and you will feel the extra focus being driven towards the teres major. The traps are by far one of the most extensive and largest muscles of your back. With fibers in the upper traps running in one direction and those in the lower traps running in a different direction, you can preferentially accentuate the work of each area by changing the position of the angle of pull. A good traps exercise therefore must position the arm at an angle while the lower traps can be hit nicely on the inverted y exercise. The rotator cuff and lower back are no less important to complete back development. See the best back exercises for hitting these areas and start not only building a bigger back but making sure that yours stays healthy for a long time. For a complete back workout that helps you to not only build a bigger, thicker, wider back but ensures that yours stays injury free forever, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Use the same exact workouts that top professional athletes use to stay injury free and dominate on the field. For more back workout videos and how to get a wider lats, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Your transformation starts here - http://athleanx.com/x/fat-to-fit Subscribe to this channel here - http://bit.ly/2b0coMW Aamir Khan is a famous Bollywood actor who is making waves for the incredible body transformation he made to go from fit to fat to fit again in just months for his movie Dangal. In one of the most stunning body makeovers in film history, Khan went from 155 pounds to 215 at a body fat of 38 percent and then dropped back down to 158 pounds and 9.3 percent body fat. In this video, I’m going to cover the real key behind this transformation and what you need to realize before you attempt to make the same rapid change. The first thing you must notice about this is that Aamir was fit before he made this movie. He walked around at a steady 150 pounds and by all standards was in very good shape. He already had the discipline instilled him to conduct a healthy lifestyle where he regularly worked out and ate right. The real struggle, as he put it, was in putting on the weight not necessarily taking it off. That is not consistent with what those who struggle with weight really battle. Rather than struggling to put it on, those with weight issues have a major difficulty trying to get rid of the excess body fat. This is for two reasons. One is as already alluded to, they do not possess the consistency of a regular gym habit or good eating habits. Second, they are metabolically at a disadvantage having spent many years either yo-yoing with their weight or simply staying overweight throughout the time period. When this happens, your body reacts by lowering your insulin resistance and you have a tough time mobilizing body fat for fat burning. If you are more muscular on the other hand and in good shape, your insulin sensitivity is higher (lower insulin resistance) and you have a much easier time dropping weight when attempted. That said, the Aamir Khan body transformation is not consistent with the more realistic transformation that needs to be made by the many that are overweight and have been for quite some time. That is not to take away from what he accomplished. It is an exercise in dedication for someone to do what he did in order to lose the amount of weight he did while not dropping his hard earned muscle. Two things you can take away from this that are very important as well. The first is the value of having a plan. This weight loss was very well choreographed from the beginning. Every step of this weight gain and loss was done knowing the course for how it was to take place from the start until the last pound was lost. The next thing was the level of accountability that was in place as well. In normal situations, you are not being held accountable for your weight gain or weight loss. Not the case here with Aamir. He had a major motion picture deal hinging on the fact that he had to lose the weight or the movie could not be written. In fact, because of this, he requested that the weight gain scenes be filmed first so he would have to lose the body fat in order to finish out the movie. For a complete training and nutrition program that both holds you accountable and also gives you all of your meals and workouts in a step by step plan, be sure to head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. If you want to look like an athlete, you’ve got to train like an athlete and now you can with this day by day plan. For more videos on workout transformations and before and after weight loss stories, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

Get more out of every ab exercise and workout you do here http://athleanx.com/x/train-your-abs-like-an-athlete There are millions of ab workouts and ab exercise combinations that you can do to help you get six pack abs. That said, if you aren’t doing your ab exercises the way I’m showing you in this video, you could be leaving a lot of potential results on the table. In this ab workout video, I show you the number one tip for getting six pack abs from your training. Of course, thinking that you can ignore your nutrition and have this work is a big mistake. Remember, abs are made in the gym and revealed in the kitchen. So, what makes this tip so effective? First of all, this works in any ab workout. You can opt to do your ab workouts at home or at the gym and this will work equally well either place. This also helps to improve the quality of the abdominal muscle that you do develop. Too many people worry about simply getting through an ab exercise without worrying about what muscles are doing the work to get you there. If you want to see faster results from your ab workouts you have to learn how to contract your abs on every rep of every ab exercise. I show you how to apply this to two of the most popular home ab exercises around, the crunch and reverse crunch. Performing the exercise correctly technically does not mean that you performed it as effectively as you could have. In the example of the crunch, I show you how simply lifting your shoulder blades off the ground and keeping a posterior tilt is technically considered a proper rep. However, if you want to make the abs do much more work and in turn develop much better six pack abs, you will have to forcefully contract your abdominals on every rep. You cannot coast your way through an ab workout if you want it to deliver serious results. In order to get ripped 6 pack abs at home or at the gym you need to worry about the quality of every rep you perform. An ab workout cannot even truly be called a good abs workout if you don’t follow this advice. If you want to get a ripped six pack for summer, then it’s time you start performing your ab workouts with more intensity. Try this ab work out tip I show you the next time you work your abs and then head to http://athleanx.com to get the full ATHLEAN-X Training System. Train like an athlete from head to toe and build ripped, athletic muscle like the pros. For more ab workout videos and the best ab exercises for getting a six pack, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24