all right so today we're going to talk about ABS something I don't talk about a whole lot let me give you a little bit of background on my abdominals so in 2005 I almost died from a rare disease called idiopathic mile intimal hyperplasia of the mesenteric vein so I had a vascular disease and the sigmoid part of my colon and I was actually in the hospital bleeding to death and from this disease I had my entire colon removed the reason why I'm telling you that is because I ended up having a lot of surgeries and they cut me from here right down the line big companies I end up getting six surgeries so it killed basically I cut up all the Linea Alba and a fashio tissue and I actually started getting a condition that women get that are pregnant called diastasis recti that's when your abdominals actually start to move out to the side of your body because there's nothing hold them together I was very very frustrating for me I end up having a surgery a very very rare surgery another one where they actually tied my apps together my abs are actually sewn together and they've been like that since 2006 actually that reach actually that surgery was in more like 2008 so my abs are tremendously weak and I hadn't a lot of nerve damage from all the surgeries I had so I had like tingling all around here up until about 2012 so ABS have been a long road to recovery for me so I'm very very in tune with what's working for my ABS and not working the number one thing that helps my ABS is leg raises okay particularly my lower abs now usually I do them with a one a machine that has a like 1/2 BOSU ball sitting in my lower back so when I bring my legs down I can stretch my lower abs I don't have one of those today but I'm going to just show you a hanging leg raise because the leg raised to me is like a boxer size number 1 you're bringing your pelvic girdle up towards your torso ok so we're going to start right here so when these leg raises I like to do sets of eight to ten remember my abs are pretty weak so you might be you might be done sets of fifteen to twenty I use straps on these so my grip doesn't give out and you may notice - I'm keeping my legs straight it's okay if you bend your knees I just don't feel it as much in my hip flexors if I keep my legs straight I feel more in my lower out now here's one other thing I want to mention when I'm doing these regularly like three or four times a week I'd literally feel my lower abs are sucked in they feel better and if I get lazy and I don't do these I can feel that lower abdominal pooch that bloating my abs start to stick out I hate that so these there's like a very very noticeable effect of keeping my abs sucked in so three sets here for you probably 15 to 20 for me underneath the tent okay second Ave exercise is gonna be something for your more of your upper abdominals because you're bringing your torso now down towards your pelvic girdle it's a simple rope crunch I always remember the video of Arnold and pumping iron when he was though the rope crunches I always think about that when I do these so now we're going to rope crunches when you come down and breathe all your air out exhale flex your abs and suck them in okay when you're coming up also suck them in if you notice a lot of ab work I'm going to tell you to suck your abs in okay so three sets of about for you again is going to be 15 to 20 for me it's eight to ten so yeah all right so three sets here maybe you've had cramps too in your abs and you're doing ab work that is the most painful brutal cramp I think you can get you can't even move you just kind of kind of lay there and stretch for 15 minutes so second exercise three sets here rope crunches suck in your stomach all right so you've done your leg raises your lower abs your crunches your upper abs now we're gonna do an exercise now for your transverse abdominis TVA as some people call it it's a really deep muscle it looks like a they call it the girdle of your abdominal wall something let's shape like a corset you'll read that you'll read you'll hear that term a lot but when you have these muscles activated they're working they also suck your abs in really good now most people train this muscle by laying on their back and I have no issue with that at all I just have a little different way I've always that mine this is a lat pulldown crunch is what I call it but what I'm really doing is what I'm stretching I'm sucking in my abs I'm trying to take my belly button to my spine that's the cue that people will give you when you're laying on your back bone they'll tell you take your belly button and push it down your spine I'm doing the same thing I'm just doing it here now you may feel a really uncomfortable feeling right through here if that happens if that happens you're doing it right that's good you're activating things that are normally getting activated so I'm sucking in pushing my belly button in and then I'm blowing my hair out and flexing my ass suck in all right so now you've done for each sets here again probably 15 reps for you so you've done three sets of leg raises three sets of rope crunches three sets of these for your lat pulldown crunches for your transverse abdominus that's a very long lab workout now the way I do it is I usually do a leg raise every time usually four times a week but I don't always do the rope crunches and the TVA work I'll do those maybe once each one of them once a week so the majority of my work is the leg is the leg raises but you can do it either way you can do all of them and once three times a week or you can do maybe leg raises and in the second exercise if you do that three times a week just play around and see what works best for you but if you're doing all three of those particularly leg raises you'll get good results in your abs okay so one of the questions always comes up is do squats and deadlifts make your waist bigger my opinion is no they don't number one you might be wearing a belt so that's going to that's gonna help you not use those muscles but number two I feel like if you want to if you want to thicken your waist you should just train your obliques with some weight and if you notice on our ab workout we didn't do that you notice I didn't mention internal wobbly at all or even external oblique but your internal obliques these think muscles right here if you if you want a wide waist that's what you train you know a heavy side Bend things like that that's what I make your waist big I do not believe again that a deadlift in a squat will make your waist big and through the years I've actually seen bodybuilders stop squatting and anything thinking that their waist was going to appear smaller and what I saw happen is their legs got a little smaller and their back got a little smaller so the waist actually looked bigger it had the exact opposite effect so I wouldn't sweat it I wouldn't worry about making your waist too big just don't do direct oblique work okay that's to me that's really the key so thanks for watching give this ab workout a try let me know what you think let me know if you get some cramps in your stomach I'm kind of borderline on cramps now myself but if you like this click like and subscribe and thanks for watching I appreciate your support