Keep your abs strong
EXERCISES By Gunnar Peterson,
VERSAPULLEY CRUNCH (WHILE KNEELING ON A BOSU)
TARGET: UPPER ABS
Start: Kneel on the dome of a BOSU placed a couple of feet in front of a VersaPulley machine. Grasp the rope or handles with your upper arms alongside your head, and begin with your knees at 90-degree angles and your torso at roughly a 45-degree angle to the floor.
Execution: In an explosive motion, crunch your abs to bring your elbows to the BOSU, keeping your arms in position and your hands close to your head. Resist the negative by keeping your abs tight and not letting the machine pull you back up too fast.
Gunnar’s take: “I love the eccentric on the VersaPulley.
Whatever you take from the machine on the concentric
portion, it gives right back on the eccentric.
If more relationships had that kind of give and take, the divorce rate would be cut in half. Using the BOSU increases
the range of motion at the bottom because your knees are elevated, and it challenges your stability and works the core more.”
Gym-friendly version: A cable crunch mimics this
movement but doesn’t provide the same eccentric action
you get with the VersaPulley. A better alternative
is to secure a thick rubber band to the top of a power
rack or other stable structure, grasp the bottom of the
band and perform the same movement. Because of
the band’s elasticity, it’ll pull you up faster than a cable,
forcing you to resist the negative that much more.
ROTATING ROMAN-CHAIR CRUNCH (WITH A BODY BAR)
TARGETS: UPPER ABS, OBLIQUES
Start: Sit more or less erect on a roman chair with your feet secured. Hold a Body Bar (or any lightweight bar) across your upper traps with your hands wide.
Execution: At a relatively quick pace—one second up, one second down—do full situps. Go down as far as you can and return all the way to the start while twisting to one side; alternate sides for reps.
Gunnar’s take: “This stresses your abs while moving in two planes. When you sit up and twist, that’s a move you do all the time; in fact, you do it every morning when you get out of bed. Athletes in a number of sports do it, so it’s great to train like that.” Gym-friendly version: If your gym doesn’t have a roman chair, use a decline bench at the steepest setting. If this limits how far you can descend, especially since the bar will get in the way, hold either a light dumbbell or medicine ball at chest level or overhead. “Adding the extra load makes you really feel it,” Peterson says. “It’ll be much more challenging.”
