The 5 Minute Lower Ab Screamer & A Story About Doing Your Best (Ab Challenge Thursday)

This last Tuesday was my leg day (I’ve been doing legs on Tuesdays and Thursdays) and I had a very interesting insight. As most of you know I like to push my workouts to full exhaustion and this leg day was no different.

This is what I have been doing:
10 sets of…
25 Prefatigue bodyweight squats
5 sec lower into squat, 10 sec isometric hold, 5 sec raise out of squat (at the top I don’t come up all the way so to keep strain on my legs. This is 1 rep. I do 5 of them.
Rest for 1 minute and do 9 more total sets with 1 min rest periods in between each set of 5 repetitions.

It is extremely challenging but that isn’t what’s interesting. What’s interesting is what happened in my mind when I got to the end.

I like to watch inspiring videos while I do the above leg workout because I am in a small space and the goal is to push myself as far as I can go. A couple of my favorites are: How Bad Do You Want It and Humans Are Awesome.

At the end of the workout I found myself watching this video below. I happened to start feeling the agony right when the young football player was going through the agony of doing a bear crawl with someone on top of him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozztKbU3Btk

As the coach yelled in my face and his I closed my eyes and kept driving forward. I held my isometric squat for longer and longer periods of time. My breathing became super rapid as if every molecule of oxygen was immediately being used to keep my body up.

I finally collapsed on the ground at the same time the man above made it to the goal line. I was crying because it hurt so bad and was in ultimate pain and joy at the same time.

I did my best and it was FAR past what I could have thought.

It took my legs a few minutes to be able to work again but I got up and couldn’t help but think, “Wow, that truly was my best. I wonder what other things are not ‘best material’ yet…”

Have you given your best today?

Do you truly know your best?

In today’s workout, we will find out. 🙂

What’s The Key To Seeing Your Abs?

Many months ago I went through Mike Geary’s Truth About Abs Program and was blown away by the results. The plan took me through a very specific method of diet in order to reduce body fat. The program has been around for quite awhile but it works really well. Its one of the plans that have stood the test of time.

Although my goal right now is more calisthenics strength focused I wanted to share with you a few key tips for reducing body fat so that you can see your abs, especially the hard to see lower portion of the abs.

Tips For Reducing Body Fat:

1. Eat quality protein such as Eggs, Chicken, Turkey, Fish, Legumes (lentils, black beans, kidney beans, etc.)
2. Eliminate all refined foods such as pastas, sweets, sugary foods, etc.
3. Limit fruit except for unripe bananas, pears and apples.
4. Eat an abundance of colorful vegetables.
5. Restrict carb Calories to less than 200g/day.
6. Restrict total Calories. Don’t know who much to eat? Here’s a great Calorie calculator from Scooby!

Show Me The 5 Minute Lower Ab Screamer!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d-kV6bZ4jg
As I mentioned above, this workout is challenging.

Try your best to make it through the entire workout. Yes your TRUE best. Give it everything you have and you’ll be super proud of yourself at the end. 🙂

Have a great day!

-Todd