Strengthetics the new age of bodybuilding

Introducing Strengthetics,  the ultimate combination of strength and aethetics for the modern bodybuilder

The most important thing in your entire world right now is the V taper!! Forget about eating sleeping drinking, if you don’t have the v taper you might as well pack it in because your life has just lost all meaning.  Maybe you haven’t heard aesthetics is the new big, nobody goes around talking about how big anyone is anymore, It’s all about the, oh damn that guys aesthetic as fuck.

 So you want to be aesthetic do ya?  Well that’s nice and all but all you pretty little guys have got to learn how to be strong and look good, these are the new rules of fitness and its called “Strengthetic”.  Yea you can walk around with a good physique and let everyone around you be mirin but if you don’t have what it takes to back it up we’re going to call you out on it.

Rule number one of “strengthetics” is, it’s all about the abs baby!  If you’ve got a big thick waist line it’s time to trim it down.  Shoulder to waist ratio is like Hollywood magic, the bigger the ratio the better you look.  I know you think you know everything there is to know about abs.  I’d even bet you spend hours every day doing crunches then staring in the mirror wondering when you’re keg will turn into a six pack.

Here’s the first thing you are never ever going to do again.  Don’t ever do a crunch or sit up, did I just blow your mind?  Well if I did, do not ever let me see you doing a side bend with a dumb bell because I might just lose all sanity I ever had. Worst exercise ever! One of the biggest problems in society is caused by everyone sitting on their ass so much.  This causes a shortening of the hips flexors and increased pelvic tilt leading to serious back problems, and adding more stress by doing sit ups or crunches won’t help.

Do you seriously think that your body evolved the way it has so that you could lay down on the floor and curl up into a fetal position repetitively in order to get a six pack!?!?!  Your abs are built to stabilize your body through isometric, eccentric, concentric and rotational contraction, in an upright position. Stop lying down on the job.

Let’s first state the obvious and most important portion of ab work, standing compound movements.  That means lifting things while standing up, such as standing press, squats, front squats etc.  This means you are actually working out your entire core while working out other muscles and it does not take any extra time.  So instead of doing all your shoulder presses seated you can add in some standing press work and although you may have to take the weight back a bit, you will be engaging a whole lot of other muscles. If you doubt the ability to work your abs in this manner unrack a heavy load in the front squat position and you will quickly realize how much work your abdominals are doing,

There are a few mandatory exercise for increasing your abdominal strength.

Cable twists:

These can be done from 3 different positions, low middle and high.  I suggest some mixture of all 3.  From the top it should mimic a sledge hammer motion, the middle feet planted firmly wide and making sure to only move the upper body,  bottom will mimic  a bad golf swing.  These are all rotational concentric ab work that engage that entire midsection of the body including the obliques. 2 sets at each height,  keep the reps above 12 and make the movement fast and powerful, this is a speed movement.

Mandatory isometric work should include different forms of planking .  During each training session the goal should be to increase the time of the hold and once that time become more then 20 seconds have a partner assist by either pushing you down or placing plates on your back. 2 sets flat planks 2 sets on each side

Eccentric work will include a few different exercises depending on skill level.  An advanced athlete can perform dragon flyes but a newbie wont.  The ab wheel is a good tool to use that can be scaled to skill level. Starting from your knees you can limit amount of extension, as strength increases  to a full extension and eventually doing the exercise from a standing position. This form of work concentrates strongly on resistance to eccentric contraction.  The extension portion should be slow and very controlled. 3 sets of amrap

I like to finish off abs with overhead medicine ball smashes.  This is a full body movement that generates its power from the core.  Use a smash ball raise it above your head, with both arms  throw it down as hard as you can into the ground.  Pick it up and repeat until fully exhausted, each rep should be maximum effort. 3 sets to failure

These are a few exercises that will keep your core nice and tight without getting overly wide and without affecting the hip flexors.  Remember to keep these workouts short sweet and to the point, we want to keep our midsection slim and trim so keep that volume down and strength up!