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When it comes to ab exercises, there are five big mistakes that you could be making that are preventing you from getting your six pack to show at its best. In this video, I’m going to show you the worst ab exercise mistakes that you could be making and more importantly, how to correct them. You will learn about the ab movements that work the best and the ones that are not worth your time.
To start, it is important to discuss the role of nutrition in abs. Despite what some people will tell you or lead you to believe, you will never have great looking abs or a six pack if you do not get your nutrition in check first. What you eat and the diet you follow are crucial to seeing your ripped abs year round. If you refuse to eat healthy then you will never have body fat levels low enough to be able to see the results of your hard work in the gym.
That said, it is time to discuss the exercise mistakes that you may be making but will be able to fix today. First is how much you may be cheating your reps on every ab exercise. Think about it. When you are doing crunches, do you ever pull on your neck? If so, you are likely doing this to trick your eyes into thinking that your shoulders are getting high enough off the ground to constitute a good rep. They are not.
Likewise, you may be pushing into the ground with your hands or using momentum to swing your legs up while doing lower ab exercises. Neither of these are going to help you get a good contraction in your ab muscles and will limit the success you will see from your ab training over time.
The next thing you could be doing is not training your abs frequently enough. Many people think that they will just get in their ab work with stabilization of the core on their bigger lifts. This simply isn’t true. If you want to get a ripped six pack you will need to include frequent direct ab training into your workouts. In fact, your squat and other big lifts will likely benefit from the inclusion of these extra ab workout sessions.
Next, you will want to be sure that you are doing enough hanging ab exercises. Yes, they are more difficult but they are also more capable of delivering positive changes to your ab muscles than doing lots of reps of much easier ab movements. If you want to see your greatest success from training abdominals you will want to opt for some of these more challenging ab exercise options for sure.
When it comes to ab development, one thing you want to avoid at all costs are bloated looking abs. One of the ways this happens most is by confusing the fact that you should be breathing out during contraction while at the same time pushing out. You want to learn to breathe out but contract down and cinch your waist tighter. You never want to push your belly out while contracting on a rep of your ab exercises.
Finally, stop thinking about just your abs. If you start to see just how important the serratus, obliques and even your adductors are to the development of your core, you will see a real fast improvement in how your midsection looks. I have a complete video called the Holy Trinity of Ab Training that is a must watch if you want to see exercises for the obliques and serratus that will help you to get this right. You can also see here how to engage the adductors in almost any ab exercise to get more from it.
The bottom line is, if you want to get great abs you have to start by avoiding these 5 worst ab exercise mistakes. Correcting them is not that hard. Once you have and you are ready for lots of new ab exercises that you can do, head to and pick the program that is best suited to your current goals.
For more ab workouts and the 5 worst exercises that you need to stop doing, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at
42 comments
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Should we all ways breath out while pulling in and tightening our abs or only when we exercise
Bro please tell me about Pain we feel after Abs workout 😥😐
2:04 B L A A A E E I I N G out
I am a fan and doing your programs since few years and I always had problem with my lower back and I even sent Ticket on your platform and you guys told me to stretch my glutes but it did not fix my problem and I didnt tell you in my ticket that I never done any abs (cos I felt it s unimportant detail) and recently I started lifting again but now doing abs 6 -7 times a week and have no problem with my lower back or anywhere else. I just realised when you have weak Core (mine was soo bad that if I stay at 45% on a chair I start shaking immediately), it creates other problems when you lift heavy. core is really important. Listen to jeff, he s one of the most reliable source on youtube.
Honestly i have been watching athleanx for 2 years before i started working out. Doing something wrong and getting injured was my biggest fear (my dad did many different sports and got injured in all of them, then he always changed to another sport when he recovered). I have lost 20kg in a year and now i have a gym membership. I would have never done this without this videos. Thank you jeff.
Honestly the fact of how ripped Jeff’s abs are really help kinda show shat parts of the abs are supposed to be contracting in the certain exercises
I'm doing it wrong thank you for your advices
Me: cant get my chest big
Jeff: having a chest muscle seizure
God bless Jeff he helped me get upper abs I lost nearly 22 pounds…thank you Jeff 🙏🙏
thank you
5:57
How did you get hernia when you are in shape?
You are the best man
Me, jiggling my beer belly : "We'll get there."
I will continue to listen to what you have to say for as long as you're alive. THIS is what creating content is really about.
I only have resistance bands, any alternative to hanging ab exercises which target the same area?
who else got an ad thats 48 MINUTES LONG?
WHY is this not taught in school PE classes?!! I remember learning the polka and square dancing – useless! But THIS, I could have used!! Now, decades later, I'm trying to undo the damage of doing it wrong all my life and then having two babies on top of that! Thank you for the lesson!
Hello Jeff, what about the resting period? Don´t we need put our abs at rest for a day???? Thank you!
I'm pretty sure Jeff's six pack has got a six pack? 🤷♂️
You are just the BEST!!!
Damn. I never thought breathing has a massive effect in ab training 😫
Thank you for all these useful info . I appreciate
Love the hanging abs
His chest mesmerizes me so much, I have to watch it a second time just to follow what he's saying.
good stuff.
Are dip bar situps bad
Athlean i really can't do that since the area I am in doesn't have any place to hang from so pls i need advice
Watching this dude since i was a second year in middleschool lmfao
Do you have a video for decline ab crunch
Even his face has triceps
Yoooo all the time i think im doing everything fine YouTube always have to proof me otherwise. I js realised that i didnt even breath during my workout. Yoo
Hey Jeff, great video, I appreciate all of your knowledge…. I have a question… I have been hearing from different sources that doing Russian twist, especially with weight, is really bad for your back… Causing compression of the spine… Is there truth to this? I ask because you incorporate the Russian twist quite a bit, even weighted versions… So I'm thinking it isn't bad if you do them right… Correct?
I'm not sure if it's from my reducible hernia and/or from starting extra abs on rest days with the 15-min Abs Workout, but I hope I flatten my stomach since it's always bloated in the morning now.
At this point really confused 1 source says you should give some rest to ABS then here I hear that you should train them every day. Ehhh
You are so right Mr. Jeff. I need to stop playing around and getting those ab exclusive workouts everyday. Weak core = weaker workouts. I need to increase the frequency and quality of them. I just hate all ab exercises lol.
hii Bro I want to open your GYM Branch in UAE
Putting a light medicine ball between your needs during your posterior windshield wipers helps to ensure you are activating toe adductors.
4:23
So through the breathing technique, am I supposed to push my abs down as I exhale? (And yes, I did watch the video, just a little confused.
Technically how much time does abs appears mine have appered smh but i want to know the length of full