Abz..
While 6 packs are revealed in the kitchen, you still need appreciable muscle development to be revealed.
Now, I'm not one for aesthetics, but anterior core strength is an essential part of a well rounded physique that is ready for anything.
And as many lifters and athletic types do tend towards an extension posture, with the anterior pelvic tilt and the flared ribs, developing anterior core strength to balance that extension dominance is a good idea.
And for the full contact guys, we can throw in armour building there too.
And while there are a multitude of exercises for training the anterior core, one that we come back to time and again is the Ab Wheel Roll Out.
Why?
Well, it is one of the few exercises that is accessible to all that trains the abdominal muscles in a lengthened position.
Most ab drills start from a fairly neutral position and then shorten the abs, ie a crunch. This isn't necessarily bad, but you could easily cheat these with your hip flexors, your neck or a whole list of potential compensations, and you miss out on that stretch loaded position that is vital to athletic performance.
Almost all athletic motion contains three phases, a stretch of the muscle, a slight pause as the direction changes and then the release of that stretch. Or in fancy speak: Eccentric phase, Amortisation phase, Concentric Phase.
The Ab Wheel asks you to go deep into that stretch, or at least as deep as is safe. It loads the anterior core by stretching it ready to recoil.
It also brings the lats and glutes into the game, which if you're athletically minded is a no brainer.
So how exactly do we do them without the most common issue associated with the Wheel, back pain.
This video shows you exactly how:
A wheel like the one I'm using here will cost you something in the region of 10 quid and is an ideal addition to your home gym set up.
If you don't have a wheel, but do have a TRX or set of rings, you can do the same motion, except it's now called a "Fallout" Here's a great demo by Will Levy:
The closer you move those handles to the floor the more you load up, this is very very scaleable.
The fact that a wheel or a suspension trainer are such useful, space efficient and relatively cheap tools make them ideal for the home gym, and if you're familiar with WG-Fit, you know our equipment and training is also ideally suited for a home gym.
If you need help in this time getting your home gym training set up and program running at home to suit your needs, then give us a shout so we can get you on a call.
Chat soon
Dave Hedges