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Ab Choppers
Here's a great "core" exercise from AbFitt.....
Hold a medicine ball or dumbbell with both hands. Spread your feet about shoulder-width apart. Push your hips back, as if you were preparing to jump, and start the movement with the ball or dumbbell between your legs and as far back as you can reach. Now pull it upward as fast as you can until your arms are fully extended overhead. Immediately squat down for the next rep.
You can do any number of variations. Change the angles by going from vertical to horizontal or diagonal. With cables or tubing, you can go high to low or low to high.
When you're doing diagonal chops — low to high or high to low — you can pivot on one foot to extend your range of motion. That involves both the front and rear oblique systems. The best benefit of doing choppers with a pivot is the simultaneous inclusion of both the anterior and posterior oblique systems.
And remember, the key here is speed. You want to emphasize acceleration and deceleration.
#7: The Push-up Pyramid
Yeah, push-ups are boring. And it's easy to out-grow them, so to speak.
Still, the classic push-up remains a favorite of mine, I use it to train for explosive strength. The push-up is often misunderstood and underutilized.
So how do you sex up the push-up? Try this pyramid challenge.
Start in a push-up position. Do 1 rep, pause at the top for two seconds, do 2 reps, pause for two seconds, do 3 reps, pause for two seconds. Try to get up to 10 reps, and then work your way back down. You'll think this is easy, until you're about halfway through. That's when the real fight begins!
Our favorite variation is to pause for two seconds in the bottom position instead of top. Ouch.
#8: The Constant Tension Alternate Curl
Want to take advantage of muscular tension, isometric potentiation, unilateral-enhanced neural drive, and other big words and phrases? Then check out this "new" way to curl!
Start with both arms in the fully flexed position — the "top" of the curl. Lower (eccentric phase) the working arm while keeping the non-working arm flexed. Curl up the working arm until both arms are once again flexed. Then switch arms and do the same thing. You keep on alternating this way until the set is completed.
1. The biceps are under constant tension. While the non-lifting arm is waiting its turn, it's still contracted isometrically.
2. You're performing a unilateral dynamic movement.
3. You're preceding the dynamic action by an isometric one.
The downside is that you can't use as much weight, so you won't create as much muscle damage. This is why it's important to use this exercise as a secondary biceps movement, after a heavier exercise.
Like it? Want a variation? Use the same technique with dumbbell preacher curls.
