Here's a four-stage progression I put together to nail two of the hardest parts of the body
to develop. Your lower abs and hip flexors. Each stage of this exercise will be done with
resistance attached to your feet. Either cables or resistance bands will work well as long as you
have each leg weighted separately. In stage one, you'll perform a classic crunch movement using
concentric contractions with both your abs and hip flexors. In stage two, you'll use an isometric
contraction with your abs to hold your upper body still, while performing alternating stepper
contractions with your hip flexors and lower abs. In stage three, you'll perform the same movement
but start integrating isometric contractions with your hip flexors and lower abs as well, holding
that contraction on one side while the other performs the stepper motion and then switching.
Then, for stage 4, you'll stop the isometric contractions with your legs and just alternate
between resting and stepping, while you start incorporating eccentric and concentric
contractions with your abs by slowly lowering your upper body and then bringing it back up.
I'll just touch briefly on the anatomy behind this exercise. There are five primary muscles
that are commonly referred to as the hip flexors. There's the Iliacus which originates
along the Iliac Crest, along the back of the pelvis, and then inserts on the top of the
Femur on a knob called the Lesser Trochanter. So when it contracts it pulls that leg up.
Next, is the Psoas Major which originates all the way up on the t12 through l5 vertebrae and travel
down to insert on that Lesser Trochanter of the Femur, the same place as the Iliacus.
So it also pulls up on that leg as well as pulling down on the trunk.
Then there's the Pectineus, which originates on the front of the Pelvis and then inserts
further down on the Femur and, because of its positioning, it pulls in as well as up on the thigh.
There's the Sartorius which originates on the Anterior Superior Iliac spine, right where your
hip bone juts out, and then wraps around the leg to insert all the way down on the Tibia. So it has
several other roles in addition to hip flexion which we won't get into in this video. Finally,
there's the Rectus Femoris, one of the quads you probably knew the rectus femoris extends the knee
yet, unlike the other quad muscles, it doesn't originate on the Femur, instead, it originates
up on the Anterior Inferior Iliac spine so because it crosses the hip joint it also flexes the leg at
the hip. That's really important to understand if you want to work your quads effectively so I'll
be going over that in detail in another video as well. Now, because there is weighted resistance
against upward flexion of the Pelvic Girdle in this exercise, it also targets the lower section of
Rectus Abdominis AKA the abs. Yes, the upper abs are also activated along with the lower abs,
yet numerous studies along with basic biomechanics and empirical evidence have proven that you can
preferentially target the upper or lower abs. I'll be doing a much more comprehensive video
on the abs in the near future and we'll go in depth into this upper reverse lower ab principle
so, for now, I'll just leave it at that and trust me that this exercise does preferentially target the
lower section of Rectus Abdominis. If you like this video, I'd appreciate you hitting that like button
and leaving me a comment below. I'll put the link to my content requests and feedback form in the
video description, I'd love to hear from you. And, if you're serious about wanting to develop your
abs pre-registration is now open for my Shred Series Abs and Obliques Online training program
and, you're not going to want to miss that I'll leave the link in the top right corner and in
the video description and, as always, just by adding your name to the list, you'll get 50%
off the program during its beta launch. Mahalo my friends, until next time!