When most people think of
abdominal exercises, they think of slow, deliberate movements
with squeezing and tightening, which is fine.
But other than keeping your
guts in, stabilizing your core area, and looking good, what
ELSE are your abs designed for?
How about explosive power!
It's THE most neglected aspect of abdominal conditioning
that can have the greatest effect on your athletic performance.
Most abdominal exercises do
not use anything even close to a powerful stroke. Normally,
when you see ab exercises done, they're done (like I mentioned
above) in a very deliberate manner.
And for the most part, it's
actually better that way. If you try and use momentum and
explosiveness with a crunch, you don't get any muscle tension
and get almost nothing out of it. If you use explosiveness
in a weighted exercise, you put dangerous torque on the
body.
That's where bands come in.
With bands, you get the resistance
AND you get the built-in deceleration of the band as it
stretches out. Bottom line, you can explode into a band
HARD and not have to worry about hurting yourself because
the band will stop the momentum very effectively!
With this exercise, you're
going to use two bands - one high and one low. You're going
to wrap one around your knee and grab the other with your
hand. Then you're going to explode up with your knee while
simultaneously yanking down with your hand.
The abs bear the brunt of
this and will really get burning fast!
This is a GREAT exercise if
you're interested in developing sprint speed. It's also
an excellent one for martial artists as it helps developing
kneeing and kicking power.
The reason this exercise is
so good for developing sprint speed lies in the hip flexors.
One of the biggest factors in running speed is the ability
to get your leg back in front of you as quickly and explosively
as possible.
When you get to a certain
level and overall leg and body power is maximized, hip flexor
explosiveness is HUGE. This exercise, in addition to training
the abs, hits the hip flexors with explosive training. VERY
effective for improving leg speed.
I always recommend IronWoody
Training bands for all band work. Great prices and great
quality. Get
your training bands by clicking here.
How To Do It:
So to perform this exercise,
you'll need two bands. I like to use reasonably thick bands
(the green ones, if you're using the IronWoody bands I mentioned
above) to get a really powerful movement.
Attach one band to something
low and behind you while attaching the other band to something
higher up and in front of you.
I use a cable cross-over machine
(not attaching to the cables but using the frame of the
machine). I attach the low band to one upright and the high
band to the cross-beam on the other end.
Step inside the band with
your right leg then pull the band up so that it's just above
your left knee.
Now reach forward and grab
the other band that's hanging down in front of you with
your OPPOSING hand - e.g. if the band is on your left leg,
grab it with your right hand). The bands should be hitched
around these objects (demo at the bottom of the page on
how to hitch bands if you need it).
That's your start position.
Now, with an explosive movement,
drive your knee up as high as you can while bringing your
arm down as hard as you can.
Step down and pause briefly
at the bottom then repeat until you feel you can't put a
lot of explosiveness into the movement - you'll know this
by feel. Generally, with a powerful movement, it's about
4 to 6 reps.
Next, what I like to do is
when I can't do more reps holding with the one hand, I'll
grab the band with BOTH hands and continue.
Generally, it's the upper
body that fatigues first, so switching to both arms allows
you to keep going and burning out the abs and hip flexors.
Do several reps of this fast
and explosively. With this variation, I like to omit the
pause at the bottom and just barely touch my foot to the
ground before exploding right back up.
Because you're gripping the
band with both hands, your balance is better and you should
be able to pop right back up pretty well.
When you're toasted on the
one side, let go of the band then step back and let it drop
off your knee.
Change legs and pull the band
up above your OTHER knee.
Repeat the same procedure
as above, grabbing the band with your left hand and bringing
the two together. Again, finish with both arms on the band.
To really get an idea of the
explosiveness of this exercise, be sure to watch the video.
Still pictures don't give you the real impression of how
powerfully this exercise should be done.
So if you want to improve
abdominal power and explosiveness and increase your leg
speed when sprinting, give this one a try!
