The 10X10 Crunch Challenge (Ab Thursday)

Hey, hey, hey!

Before I get into today’s workout I have to share with you an INCREDIBLE resource I found. It’s called IronRadio.org and it covers some amazing research on nutrition for sports performance.

We are all getting ready for summer and working on reducing our body fat. A couple of days ago I listened to the founder of IronRadio, Lonnie Lowery (a PhD nutrition research scientist) talk about fat loss. It definitely helped bring some things together for me.

Here is the discussion I listened to on fat loss and I highly recommend checking it out. Below are Lonnie’s 6 tips to fat loss in order of importance:

6 Tips For Maximum Fat Loss:

1. Increase vegetables in your diet
2. Increase protein to 1gram/lb body weight
3. Write your planned diet and post it on the fridge (so you see it every day)
4. Decrease total Calories to 600 Calorie deficit (start off slowly with this however)
5. Do 15min cardio to 75min cardio 2-3X week (Doesn’t need to be high intensity. Can be low-moderate intensity such as walking)
6. Decrease total carbs to 200-600g/day (again, start off slowly with this)

If you are looking for specific reasons as to why these are so helpful for fat loss and why Dr. Lonnie placed them in this order, click the link above to listen to the audio. He has been my new go-to source for fat loss information.

The 10X10 Crunch Challenge (Ab Thursday):

The “crunch” has gone in and out of style so often in the fitness arena. At first it was the be-all/end-all exercise for abs. Then people got sick of it and decided that the crunch wasn’t cool any more and all these other types of unique ab exercises came out. That’s all fine and dandy but the fact of the matter is that the crunch is still one of the most effective ab exercises that exists.

Today’s workout is called, “The 10X10 Crunch Challenge.” It will be incorporating 3 different types of crunch movements to give us a killer ab challenge.

Below if the video of the workout so get a couple of minutes of ab stretches in and let’s get started!

 

Here is how the workout is laid out:

We will be doing 3 different types of crunches:

1. Normal crunch
2. Right side crunch
3. Left side crunch

You will do 10 reps of the normal crunch and then go immediately into the right side crunch. You will do 10 reps of right side crunches and then switch over to left side crunches for a total of 10 reps. Continue on like this for a total of 3 minutes.

After the 3 minutes are up you will get 30 seconds of rest and then begin the above all over again. Total sets will be 3 times through the whole thing for a total of 10 minutes.

For example:

• 3 minutes of crunches
• 30 second rest
• 3 minutes of crunches
• 30 second rest
• 3 minutes of crunches

*Important tip for crunches– When you are doing any type of crunch movement you really need to bring your upper body through a full range of motion in order to get the full benefit of the crunch. For example, when you are doing the normal crunch keep your legs further away from your head. When you curl up make sure your elbows touch your knees but don’t bring your knees up to your elbows. Keep your knees far away and curl your upper body up until your elbows touch your knees. Do the same thing for the side crunches. This will make it much more challenging. I explain more in the video so check it out!

That’s it for today!

-Todd

P.S. Was the workout too challenging or not enough? I would like to know your fitness level so I can tailor these workouts to make sure you are challenged. Post your thoughts below…