Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2085: Abs & Core Masterclass

Episode Date: May 29, 2023

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover everything you need to know to build an amazing 6-pack and a strong core. When it comes to aesthetics, one muscle almost always tops the list for both men and women. These are the muscles of the core: The abs, the obliques, and the transversus abdominis. (1:53) The muscles and actions of the core muscles. (6:43) #1 - The Abs, their attachments, and common myths. (10:11) Best developing exercises: Hip flexor deactivators, Physioball crunches, reverse crunches, and leg raises. #2 - Obliques, their attachments, and common myths. (17:55) Best developing exercises: Cable chops and twisting sit-ups. #3 - Transversus abdominis, their attachments, and common myths. (24:08) Best developing exercises: Vacuums. Stabilizing movements (for the whole core): Planks, counter-rotation movements, and heavy walking movements. (30:50) How to prioritize your core muscles in your programming? (33:10) Related Links/Products Mentioned For Mind Pump listeners only, Dr. Cabral is offering a Buy 1 + Get 1 for the EquiLife Omega-3 Support soft gels. Boost your brain, heart, recovery, and much more with this limited-time Buy 1 Get 1 Free offer! LAUNCH SPECIAL: MAPS Bands, Retail for $97, with $30 off during the launch. The public price is $67. Includes 2 E-Books: Bonus #1: Ultimate Bodyweight Training Guide (Retail: $47), Bonus #2: Quick Meals for Health; Fitness (Retail: $47). Money back guarantee, Ends Sunday, May 28th. **Coupon Code BANDS30 at checkout** May Promotion: MAPS Prime or MAPS Prime Pro or the Prime Bundle 50% off! **Code MAY50 at checkout** Hip Flexor Deactivators- Do these first to maximize your Ab development Killer Ab Exercise- The Physio Ball Crunch - YouTube Reverse Crunch Build An Amazing Midsection with the Side Wood Chop - YouTube Shrink Your Waist with Stomach Vacuums | MIND PUMP How To Do A Stomach Vacuum - Train Your Transverse Abdominis How to Do a Cat Cow Pose for Energy | Yoga The Active Plank- An 6-Pack Building Powerhouse - YouTube Add Size to Your Traps with Farmer Walks - YouTube How To Overhead Press with Kettlebells | Mind Pump - YouTube No BS 6-Pack Abs | MAPS Fitness Products **Coupon code NOBS50 for 50% off** Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness health and entertainment podcast ever. This is Mind Pump, right today's episode. We talk about training, your core, the abs, the obliques, the muscles, everybody's interested in the sexy muscles, the functional muscles. Today's episode we talk all about them, what they do,

how to train them, how not to train them, all that amazing stuff. Now this episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Dr. Stephen Cabral and his team, these are functional medicine practitioners, they can help you improve your health, and right now you can get one of their omega-3 fatty acid supplements. If you buy one, you get one health. And right now, you can get one of their Omega 3 fatty acid supplements.

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So it's STEPH en, C-A-B-R-A-L.com forward slash Omega 3. So it's S T E P H E N C A B R A L dot com forward slash Omega 3. Once again, it's by one, get one free. Also, it's the final hours of our new maps workout program launch maps bands. This is an advanced muscle building fat burning program that only uses bands. And because it's a new launch, it's on sale and you get some free giveaway. So, if you sign up during the launch period, which again, I told you, these are the final hours, you'll get 30 hours off the normal price plus you'll get the ebook, ultimate bodyweight

training guide and you'll get quick meals for health and fitness. This is a recipe book. So, if you're interested and you want to get the sale and you want to get the free ebooks, go to mapsbands.com and use the code Bands30 for the discount and the free ebooks. All right, here comes a show. When it comes to aesthetics, one muscle almost always tops a list for both men and women. These are the muscles of the core, the midsection, the abs, the obliques. They represent attractiveness, but they also represent incredible athletic physical pursuit. It's true. Strong core translates to incredible athletic prowess, just like it does to aesthetics.

So today's episode, we're going to talk about the core, how to develop the muscles of the core, so you can look good and move good so you can perform well Let's get to the core of itself. I know. I always want to use the word prowess prowess it's a weird prowess prowess how was it W in there So I want to say the W and is this true is it is it both sexes? Yeah, it's almost always top five for both men and women is a midsection Part of the reason is because visible, like muscles of the midsection, show a lot, right?

Show us that you're lean. So you have to be lean to see on. You have a super dial to get there. Yeah, you have to be somewhat lean, I have to be super shredded, but just enough to see that it's lean and strong. And then when it comes to sports, you know, arms and legs, right?

Are involved in most athletic pursuits. But what connects the power from the legs to the upper body allows you to move, stabilize, what allows you to throw with a lot of force in the upper body or throw with a punch or rotate and catch something is the stabilization of the core, the strong core. You can have the strongest legs, hips, arms, back, shoulders, but if you have a weak core,

you're going to hurt yourself. You're not going to be able to train like that to athletic performance. So a strong core is imperative for all those different things. I still think it's crazy that you're more likely to become a millionaire than have six pack abs. Isn't that wild? The odds of having a six pack are lower.

Yeah. To me, that has to be one of the most fascinating stats that we've ever read on the shows that you're more likely to be a millionaire than have six pack abs. Well, think about this way. If you walk outside, we're still calm valley, right? So, millionaires are a little bit hot, you know, probably more calm.

Yeah, put the whole US in. I bet still, like, you take 100 people, have them lift up their shirts, random people on the street. How many of them would have a six pack? Not as that random. Yeah zero. Yeah, probably zero. I actually I bet you it be a a Pretty low percentage even in a gym where you have a massive box. Yeah, yeah That's how I'm I used to tell members that when I get like a new member who was like you know

You could tell we're kind of insecure about their body and how they felt and and I would stand them up a lot Sometimes I look at I said this this place is not full of all these crazy ripped bodies that people think Most people in here just like you and I and a pursuit of a better physique and working on it and it's hard It's not easy like but I don't remember reading that stat until later until we we got into the the podcasting when I think you brought it up on the show years ago, and I thought that was the craziest things I've ever heard. I know, well, right? Yeah. I would say that part of the reason why it's so rare is it involves, you know, you could have like nice looking arms and be at a higher body fat percentage, especially if you're a man because you don't store tons of the arms, legs, you know,

but core, you have to be kind of lean. But also, you know, I'm gonna make a statement, I'd love you guys' opinion on. I would say that of all of the misunderstood, wrong, like, you know, applied exercises and poor technique and just myths around exercise, probably more of them circulate around the core than the rest of the body.

Like, that's a good, that's a pretty good speculation. I think that, like how we treat them completely different than other body parts. Yeah, like they develop different. Well, I would put him up there with, because I think before on the show I've talked about glutes being like the number one, like muscle that people have a hard time connecting. I would say abs would be the second. I think abs are number two. Well, let me ask you as this, is it, God, think about this. How often do you see someone doing a core exercise

really properly? Think about that. Very rare. Almost never. Almost never. You see a lot of people doing core exercises. Sure. But I almost never see them being done right.

To the point where, that was a selling point for me as a trainer, is I walked around the gym and waited for people to work abs, because I knew I could show them in three seconds, had to do it right, and then they would just, it would blow their minds on how much differently they felt them. Yeah, and for me, I never, I guess, it's interesting.

It's rare to see somebody like muscular with like fully displayed abs as well. It was like, there was a period there. It was like, everybody wanted abs so bad that they would just lean out completely without lifting weights. And it was just like, okay, so you got skinny and run or abs display, yeah.

Run or abs. And I'm just like, sorry, no. That's not what we're going for here. No, what you want, and there's a lot of muscles of the core, but we're gonna stick to the more common ones, because I think if you train kind of these, you're gonna work all the other ones for the most part. Obviously you have the abs, the abdominals.

Then you have the obliques, both internal external, we're gonna combine them into just the bleaks. And then you have the transverse abdominals, which we'll talk about because I think that's kind of a special muscle that we're talking, and we're talking mainly of the front of the core. The core really represents all the muscles around the trunk, but we're going to talk about the muscles on the side and in the front and how to work them and develop them.

But really the actions are obviously flexing the spine, laterally to the front. We'll get to the specifics. But a lot of the importance of the core muscles is to stabilize and allow power transfer. So stabilization would be like, if I'm throwing a ball as far as I can, my core has to stabilize so that I don't twist, my body doesn't just twist off of itself, right? The green and grounding you to the earth.

Anti-rotation. Anti-rotation, we're because we're primates that walk on two limbs. If you look at most common places for pain, it's the low back. It's a vulnerable area because we walk on two legs. That, the core has to be able to, when you walk, if you look at some of walking or running, you'll notice that the opposite arm moves from the opposite leg. So like, for example, try walking right now, right leg forward with your right arm forward. And you're trying to do that?

Yeah, you're just a robot. I think a weird man. It does, yeah, there's counterbalance, counter rotation. The core is transferring all of that, and it needs to be strong and stable. Every time you stand up, sit down, pick something up. Those muscles have to, because the spine, you take your spine out,

it'll just flop over in whatever direction gravity tells it. So it's all those muscles around the core that protect it and keep it stable and call it allow for power transfer. So for purposes of lifting, you want to get strong and big lifts like the overhead press or the deadlift or the squat. You better have a strong stable core. You want to get good sports besides the technique, well, you better have a strong core.

And then if you want to look good on the beach, that's the muscle that the opposite sex tends to notice the most. Well, and two, and that's sort of in contrast to what you're talking about in terms of what people like want to pursue this look, where they don't really consider the obliques as much and they don't really consider a lot of those twisting transverse type movements that will boost your strength, performance, and all of that. And it's really just like, the pursuit is to decrease the size of the waist overall and to be able to display your abs is like the six max. But yeah, those bleaks totally underrated muscle. Very important.

Very impressive. It definitely stands out and chisels out your whole midst distance. Yeah, we'll get to the bleaks, but it's funny when you look at Greek sculptures and statues, they based those statues, and they were like, curcules, right, or David, right? They would sculpt them based off of the high-performing athletes that they saw or soldiers of the day, same thing with the Roman statues, right, off the gladiators. Well, you'll always notice as well-developed core muscles, especially obliques, because really strong people

don't have abs and no obliques. Like we try to do with bodybuilding, right? They have well developed obliques, they're so important. But let's start with the abs. And as we go through this, what we're going to do is we're going to talk about the two, the points of attachment of muscles and the way the muscle fibers run, because that'll tell you how to train them, how to train them, and what a muscle, what a muscle ends up doing. So if you have two points and a muscle attaches on one point and another point and the fibers run

straight between them, when that muscle contracts it pulls those two points closer together. So if you look at any anatomy chart and you look at muscles you can pretty much figure out what that muscle does when it contracts because it'll pull those two points together in the direction of the muscle fibers. So with the abs, without getting specific, just general, the attachments are the ribcage, the lower ribcage, and the pelvis. So they attach here and here. And when they contract, they bring the pelvis closer to the ribcage. They do what's called flexion of the spine. Now what they don't do is flexion

at the hips, this is where people screw up. So anytime you see someone doing sit-ups or crunches or ab exercises, they think just bending forward or bringing the legs up works the abs. The abs stabilize, but they're not really working in a full range of motion. What the abs do when they work in a full range of motion is they bring the rib rib cage closer to the pelvis. It rolls you up. That's the full action of the abdominals, but they also stabilize the spine. So you want to pick exercises that do both if you really want to develop them. Now, why would you explain to a client that our hip flexors tend to take over a lot of exercises like this for people? Is it more that they don't understand how the abs work or do you think it's because the hip flexors are just overactive because of their daily use?

And then when a movement like that occurs, they just default to the hip flexors. We don't do a lot of full range of motion ab exercises in everyday life or movements, but we do work our hip flexors because we walk. So when you tell someone to lift their legs up, like hanging leg raise, which is a very hard ab exercise, they know to lift their legs up, like on a hanging leg raise, which is a very hard ab exercise, they know to get their legs up. And what they do is they just automatically turn on those hip flexors and bend at the hips.

And when you do what, try to do a sit up, they'll even do the same thing. You'll see them sit up with this real upright posture because it's all hip flexors. Yeah, and I think too, like I could compare it, I guess, like it's squatting versus hip hinging movements. Like, there's a clear distinction there that's like a little bit of a hard transition to

educate somebody like how to hip hinge versus like how to squat down. And because like a lot of natural inclination is to just, you know, squat their way down. And to be intentional with maximizing the pulse, you get more stretch out of the hamstring, for instance, or be able to focus just completely on that. I think it's the same with the abs in terms of like, what's your desired outcome? You're trying to contract the abs at their full capacity. So you have to be able to treat it, you said from point to point and shorten that range. Yeah. And use the same things that you understand about the rest of the body like tension and

rep ranges that you get to literally curl up like a ball to be able to make that happen. Yeah, but rep ranges and tension. I mean, what builds biceps builds your abs too. So there's a lot of myths around like you get a few hundred reps like no, same thing like with your biceps, you keep the reps reps within the muscle building ranges, which is low to like 2025. I think that's one of the biggest myths that we're out there. I think that was at least that's what I believe even in my early years as a trainer. There's this idea that oh, your calves and your abs can take more of a beating because you use them all day long constantly. And so therefore, you should do even more repetitions

to get them to build. And the truth is, I actually, when I figured out that that was not true, saw the greatest results going the opposite direction because you rarely ever see anybody train five or eight reps in abs. Just like you never see anybody do five or eight reps in calves. You never seen anybody do less than 20 reps for us.

Right. Both those, and I felt like the greatest gains I saw in both those muscle groups came from actually focusing on heavy training and slow and controlled and only doing five reps. I saw a huge difference in my abs and my calves because I had all my life thought that I needed to be doing all these supersets and 20 reps and 50 reps, 100 reps, like completely opposite. Same here I did. I went for years thinking I didn't have good

core genetics and I have to get shredded to really see them to figuring that out, doing decline sit ups really slow. So I'd roll myself up and only be able to get like really slow good like eight reps. In my abs, grew to the point where my abs now are one of my strongest body parts. That was over the course of like seven months of training. Literally how big of a difference I made to my physique by doing that. So yeah, tension reps, but you got to have perfect form.

You have to have perfect form in order for this to work. Now some of the best exercises for people are the ones they think encourage good form. Like there's a movement called that I called hip flexor deactivators. We actually did a video on YouTube an old one. I used to teach clients that exercise because it helped them to engage the abs without engaging the hip flexors. And then the next step, which I still to the States, one of my favorite exercises are physical ball crunches. I like physical ball crunches because you wrap your body around the ball so you get full extension.

And then if you keep your hips in place, so you don't rock back what you have, so you keep them in place, it's a full ab crunch or full ab sit up. It's a full range of motion exercise. If you do physio ball crunches right with a full range of motion, especially if you keep your hands here by your head

or above your head like long lever crunches, even people with really strong cores, like 10 reps. You're going to get a phenomenal exercise or one. So, squish the bug happened. It was like one of the best cues I ever gave, got from somebody. I can't remember where I originally heard that from, but I remember teaching that before. So, you know, everybody knows how to do a traditional crunch where you sit down, like, lay down the ground, your knees are bent at about a 45 degree angle or whatever that, and you're just crunching up. But when you do that short range of motion like that and your hip flexors are overactive,

it's like hardly any ad work whatsoever. And you'll see everybody has like this kind of natural arch in their low back where you can fit your hands in that gap. And so queuing people to flatten their back, and all they're really doing is they're rolling they're basically deactivating their hip flexors, because you roll the pelvis like this. It's like that's giving me an absolute. But it's such an easy cue for a client who doesn't understand how to deactivate their hip flexors or roll their pelvis.

You just say, pretend like there's a bug on your low back and try and squish that bug and that automatically rolls that pelvis, activates the core. And then when they crunch, they get a better contraction. I think that's been one of the best cues I've ever gotten. I like for people, especially people who are learning how to do this or activate their abs fully.

I like reverse crunches better than traditional crunches. Reverse crunches are harder to do wrong than a traditional crunch. So that's usually where I'll start people is I have people lay flat on the floor and they would just bend their knees and start to bypass that whole, like, hip flex ratio that way too. Yep, yep, love that exercise.

And in advance, it'll be like a leg raise, but a good ab leg raise does not look like at leg raises, you see people doing the gym. In fact, very few people could do them properly because they're hard. But what it looks like if you're hanging from a bar or you're supporting yourself by your elbows, yes, you lift your legs, but it's the pelvis

that rotates the legs up. It's not the legs bending up at the hip. So it looks like you're coming off the bench and giving yourself this long lever reverse crunch with a lot of resistance is what it is. Really strong abs. I mean, at my peak, I was getting like 10 good reps. So this is a high tension exercise,

but it can really build the abs right if you do them properly. Then we get to the obliques, the sides of the core. And the obliques are, I mean, the attachments again, the rib cage on the side, the pelvis on the side. But if you look at the way the muscle fibers run they kind of run diagonally the internal and an external obliques Both run diagonally in different directions. That means when they crunch or they when the muscle Contracts it rotates the body. It rotates and twists the body

So some of the best exercises for full oblique development are So some of the best exercises for full oblique development are cable chops or twisting crunches, things that rotate your trunk, not just your body, because they see some people doing this with a twist, but you see the whole body twisting, you literally have to rotate the trunk, then you're gonna hit those obliques

with that kind of full range of motion and really develop them. Now, when doing that exercise, one of the best cues I learned was learning to resist the way back, because the common thing so it's as a wood shop is they swing, just like if they were to swing a baseball bat,

and then they let the cable kind of swing them back. Totally. Same rules apply, just like we talk about with building your biceps. If you neglected the eccentric portion of the exercise, you'd be missing out on one of the best ways to build your biceps. The same thing goes from building your core, your abs, your obliques. That exercise is, I think on one of the best ways to build your biceps. The same thing goes from building your core,

your abs, your obliques. That exercise is, I think, one of the best exercise you can do for your obliques, but one of the things that people miss out on is the resisting of that on the way back in the workshop. Yeah, definitely. And I think step one is anti-erotation. And that's really like,

and tube, again, this is sort of like, you'll feel it just like you would, your abs are stabilizing you when the hip flexors are doing work. Same with this where like if I'm just holding a position and I'm loaded on one side, you're really gonna feel the isometric tension from the opposing oblique, which is good. Like you wanna be able to have control,

maintain control next sort of level to that is what Adam's talking about, like, you know, really being able to rotate, but then not allowing that force to pull you back and rotate with it. And then the third phase of that, I would then have a pivot where I then would rotate with it. So now I'm doing it more of a sports-specific

or functional type of a... You know, that, that reminds me of, or that progression, I should say, reminds me of the progression that we take someone through a CD row. When you first are teaching them to be upright, retract their shoulders, and you keep them in this kind of fixed position. And then as they become more advanced, they understand the action of the muscles. Then you allow them to go, okay, now, to get all rolled, this capula forward, roll,

this capula back, and you take them through this greater, full range of motion. And more range of motion. But first, you got to get them to understand what muscle they're trying to engage. I feel the same action is in when you're teaching a wood chop and you're trying to engage the obliques and the abs to resist anti-rotation. Once they understand the action okay now I can take them in this more athletic movement like you're talking about where it's a greater range of motion I go all the way through. Yeah my one of my favorite count like anti-rotation exercise for the obliques would be to stand with a cable, with your hands close to your chest,

and the cable is at the side here. So it's pulling me to the side, but I'm standing straight and strong, and then all I do is extend my arms out in front of me and bring it back. And what that does is I'm lengthening the lever, thus increasing the tension on my obliques, but the goal is to stay as rigid as possible,

and then bring it back. So it's more tension, less tension, more tension, less tension, but when my bleaks are doing a resisting rotation with that more tension. Now why is that important? You're want a bleak to stabilize your spine so you don't literally twist off yourself. That's, that can cause like if you step off of a curb or you're playing a sport like football, somebody hits you, you don't want your spine to just twist all the way. You want your obliques to stabilize to prevent that from happening. It also allows you to throw fast and throw hard and to run really well.

So that counter rotation, stabilization, super important for obliques and athletic performance. You know, I brought up the progression and compared it with the CD row. And part of the reason why I want to do that for the audience, because it just reminds me of another example of what we unfortunately get caught up in online, which is you have like literally three different ways of teaching the exercise that we just explained, and we explained it in like,

oh, I would teach the anti-rotational first, then I would teach catching it and resisting it on the way back. Oh, then I would take it through full range of motion in a more athletic movement What you'll find on TikTok and Instagram or these clips of like one trainer bashing another trainer for teaching one of those three as if one is wrong And the other one is more right and the reality is that that's part of a part of a progression. I see this a lot in in our you know social media culture today of today of like putting down other coaches and trainers and trying to claim that your way is better than other way when in reality, like a lot of times

it's a situation like that. Yeah, and again, I've seen more, God, this is I'm thinking about this. There's, I've seen more people who are otherwise muscular and well-developed, who have poor core strength and core stability than any other muscle I would say. It's because technique is so off and because you can get lean and still look like you have a developed core.

And immediately you create a ceiling of potential. Totally. Yeah, it becomes the... If you look, if you can't squat heavy or deadlift heavy or overhead press heavy because it hurts your low back, that means your core is not as strong as the rest of your body needs.

That's actually, it should not ever be that way. Power is leaking. Your power is leaking and you can't, it just can't stabilize your body. It's like trying to put a bunch of weight into the back of a truck, but it's got like really, it's got shocks made out of paper. Like, you're going to crumple and break. And that means, you're, that means your strength is worthless. It really does.

Like, if you can't support it with your state, with your core, your arms and legs might as well be a lot weaker. In fact, you probably be safer having weaker arms and legs because God forbid, you do exert full power. You're gonna hurt your lower back. I know people who've hurt in the lower back bench pressing because their core is so weak because you know you have to brace and they call my back hurt from the bench press. So yeah, and again I think this is probably with with people who work out a lot and because the technique tends to be off, this is probably one of those top parts of the body that people just misunderstand.

Next up, the last main muscle would be the transverse abdominals. Now this is like, it's like the body's weight belt. Okay, so when you suck in your stomach, that's what this muscle does. Now here's what's interesting about this, from an aesthetic point of view. This in particular with women is an area that I would

focus on, especially women who had children, because, and I would get this with women, they'd have a baby, and all the muscles of the core have to change their function with the growing baby. And some muscles have to atrophy to allow for room. The transverse abdominis is one of them. You can't pull in your midsection when you're eight months pregnant. So it would just actrophy and weaken, and it's supposed to, and that's fine. The body figures out ways to stabilize when you're pregnant.

Obviously stabilization, you're not gonna be stable as you were when you weren't, but you're okay. But then you have the baby, then you work out, you lose body fat, you get lean, you work your abs, you work your obliques, and then you're like, why can't I get this lower belly pooch to go away? I remember the first time this happened.

I had a client or a potential client come and ask me about this, and we tested her body fat, she was at 17%, she was lean, like that's really lean, fit, you could see some abs, you could see some obliques, and yet I could see what she was talking about. She had kind of this lower belly pooch. Well, I talked to one of my experienced trainers. This one I was a new trainer. They said, Oh, it's the transverse abdominis. That's the muscle that

pulls things in. So she could develop her abs and obliques all she wants, but she's not going to bring her waist and core back in until she strengthens that muscle. And what is that? Is that like the organs and stuff sliding down? That's gravity pushing the organs down and out. Because you have no, and because your transor's dominance, it's made up of 28 different internal muscles that wrap around the spine, right? So if this is super flimsy and weak, the organs are going to slide down and out.

The ability for you to keep that tight and draw in is what's going to keep that from you. Yeah, because your abs are attached up here and here. So pushing them out this way is kind of easy. So this particular muscle, if you want to strengthen it, you have to practice drawing in. So on your hands and knees, vacuum pose is one of the most effective ways to do this. And what's interesting is, when I've taken women postpartum and had them try to do this,

it's fascinating because a lot of them can't even feel it. They can't even connect to this muscle. It's a really hard one to reestablish. Yeah, so we start by standing straight up, have them dry in, and then we slowly move them down to that, you know, hands and knees. Oh, that's interesting that you start that way, because I actually start in the four-point maneuver to use gravity to show them so they can feel it. Because a lot of time, that way, create some sort of artificial resistance.

Sometimes when they're standing upright, I feel like they can't quite. So what I'll do is I'll have them stand upright, I'll tell them to draw on their belly button, and then as they're standing upright, I'll have them hold that and then try and get in that position. And then relax so they can feel it drawn.

Yeah, because I feel like. Because sometimes it's like, you can't even connect. Yeah, you know, if you can't connect, you can't connect like that. But I mean, I found that in the four-point maneuver, it's that way that the organs are pulling down, and so they feel like, oh, I can't connect like that. But I mean, I found that in the four point maneuver, it's, that way that the organs are pulling down and so they feel like, oh, I'm trying to lift that. Like there's my belly hanging.

Yeah. So like Cat Cal is like an example. It's got a whole classical under it. Yeah, I've what it kind of looks like. I said yoga pose. But when they pull the back up, they have to pull the belly button up towards the spine and squeeze and squeeze really hard.

Bodybuilders just do this on stage. Frank Zane was really famous for this stuff. You ever want people to know. It was crazy. That's the great, just to look at it, what the human body can do, to see that clear, extreme example of normal flex, and then down the vacuum,

and it's like you could get real far back and then see the ribs really stick out. And once you learn to connect to that muscle and activate it, like that's such a valuable tool. I mean, there's for like on the plane, right? And like I sort of feel my low backs and that's actually one of the first things I'll do. I was a little kind of sitting in the brace, pulling my core and then brace and it'll relieve that.

A lot of times people don't realize that's what's happening when you're in a car or in a plane or something like that and you're relaxing, your core's not active at all. And so all the weight and gravity's pulling or stressing on the spine or your hips or whatever. And simply by drawing that in and activating, it'll relieve all that and it feels so much. So once you learn how to do that, you can control that, you know, learning to activate that throughout the day

is a good practice. Yeah, and I remember at one point, there was all this debate about wearing weight belts. And one side is like, if you wear a weight belt, it'll reduce activation of the core, make your core weak. And then they came out with those FMRI studies showing muscle activation, I think it was. I think it was FMRI or MRI.

And they showed, oh no, when you wear a weight belt and you squat and deadlift some presses, you still activate the core. If anything you activate the abs a little bit more. And so then that side was like, see it's totally fine to train with the belt. It'll, it'll change you to push out. Yeah. So activating and having a good muscle recruitment pattern of two different things. What a belt does, a good powerlifting belt does, is it creates this external stabilization, and the way your core uses it, if you ever, for powerlifters know this, because you have

to learn how to wear a weight belt, and how to use it. Your core, you push out against the belt, and then the belt creates stability. In the real world without a weight belt, that is not what your core does to stabilize. So if you always train with the belt, yeah, you're going to activate your core, but you're going to learn how to stabilize your core in a way that doesn't work without a belt, and you'll actually increase your risk of injury in the real world. So for good core stabilization, don't worry about. Now, if you're going to compete in powerlifting, and you need to worry about, then you should, you should train in one time.

Part of the sport, then you definitely want to learn it. Well, this, I'm glad you brought this up because we actually had somebody in our forum just recently, the female who's going through our powerlifting program and she asked because she's never used a belt before if she should use a belt. And there was there was some debate from other guys that were weight bells saying like, oh, you should or it's great. This and that we all said, protect your back. We all said don't, unless you're gonna compete

and the competition allows you to use the belt, because the belt can be an advantage, right? You have to learn how to use it. And so then it makes sense. Okay, train with it so you get good at your competition because now I'm advising you in sport. I'm not advising you as an overall person who's trying to be as healthy as possible.

If I'm trying to advise you that way, then I tell you don't use the belt because it is, it's gonna train a different recruitment pattern and unless you're gonna walk around with a weightlifting belt every day throughout the day, it doesn't make sense for that be the way that you brace because in one day you're gonna bend over to pick a chair up or the couch or something heavy and your body's gonna think to push out against the belt that doesn't exist

because you're not wearing it right now and you would much rather have trained it to draw in to support you there, which you don't need a belt in order to do that. Right, okay, so now that we know, like, bracing involves the cord, stabilizing, tensing, and drawing in a little bit, this is a great way to do your stabilization exercises

to practice that, right? Some of the best stabilization exercises involve heavy, loaded, walking type movements. Some of the best stabilization exercises involve heavy loaded walking type movements. Some of the best. So overhead carries, carries in the rack position, farmer walks, suitcase carries, holding something heavy, keeping your body stable and strong and tight, bracing the core and walking for steps with that movement, right? That movement and your body having that counter rotation.

Excellence stabilization exercises. I would say some of the best stabilization exercises are these ones right here. Then you have the classic plank, right? Plank, you could do planks, planks are also great stabilization, but in terms of like applicable, like real world stabilization,

nothing in my opinion is better than the heavy walk. Well, plank like John Manoeuvre, I think is a great place to teach what you're trying to do because to your point about the farmer carries, overhead carries, racks, all these actually, that is going to challenge it in a real world way, but you first need to know how to activate it, right? And you need to know which, I think that's a stimulus. Another great point that we're bringing up in the show because we do talk a lot about the values of overhead carries and farmer walks. But if you do them and you don't activate the

core or brace it correctly, you're not getting a lot of value out of that movement. You're just fatiguing probably your shoulders or your forearms or your arms that are holding the weight. The main part of the biggest benefits of that exercise is to get yourself into good posture, which by the is to get yourself into good posture, which by the way, just getting into good posture will also many times draw in the core because in order to erect the spine, yeah, stack your spine up and get yourself

with a chest out in the shoulders back, the core will draw in to hold the spine in that position. It really exaggerates that when you have anything overhead. So the compensations are a lot more likely to occur. And that's why it's so important to start with being able to connect and recruit properly because you need to be able to create a safe, stabilized spine. Before now, we start adding a local motion where variables get you left to right forces, twisting forces, a lot more, so then right forces, twisting forces a lot more.

So then just a straight forward, sagittal movement. Yeah. No, so you brought up earlier that, you know, you train the abs like you would train any other muscle, you bicep, tricep with as far as the different sets, reps, things like that. How do you guys prioritize like, we address like three major functions, right, of the core slash abs. Are you hitting all three of these specifically in a routine? Are you Monday doing maybe one function, Wednesday doing another function Friday doing another function?

I don't think necessarily either one of those is right or wrong, but how do you prefer? I've almost always done the core workout all at once, and I'll typically start with the stabilization stuff then move to the full range of motion stuff. So it'll be like heavy walk, or it'll be like stabilization, counter rotation, walks, and then I'll move to the sit ups and the, which makes sense, because you don't want

to directly fatigue doing full range of motion stuff, and then you will have your former walk. And yeah, I think I'll do something now, not a good way where you get to stabilize. By the way And then you will have your former walk. And yeah, then go do something. No, not again. Where you get the stabilize. By the way, if you do ab exercises and your lower back hurts, that's a clear sign that you're using

your hip flexors too much. Because one of the hip flexors, the so-as muscle, actually attaches at the lower spine. And if you're doing like all these leg raises center, like why is it hurt my lower back? That's what. That muscle is getting fatigued, and where you're gonna often feel it is in the low back.

The low back is because that's the point of one of the insertions, one of the attachments of that particular muscle. So that's like a red flag. I'm doing ab exercise, but my back hurts the next day, or while I'm doing it. You're not doing the ab exercise at size right

if that is the case. Also, by the way, we have a core building program called the No BS 6 pack formula, because this episode is all about developing the muscles of the core in the abs, we're gonna put it 50% off. So if you wanna check that program out and get signed up,

go to nobs6pack.com and then use the code nobs50 for the 50% off discount. Check this out. If you want more free fitness information, we have guides that can help you, and they are nothing, they cost nothing, they're free. Go to mindpumpfreed.com, you can also find all of us on Instagram, Justin is at Mind Pump Justin.

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