The ab wheel rollout
The ab wheel rollout, unique bodyweight exercises difficulty rating for one rep - 9 out of 10 Average time taken to master 3 to 6 months. Description The ab wheel rollout seems an easy enough bodyweight skill to master, you simply push the wheel forward until your whole body is extended and then pull back to your starting position. However, after hitting the deck face down several times most people including myself realize just how hard this simple looking exercise is. Having said that, it is one of the three best abdominal exercises that you can do (the other two being the Dragon flag and full hanging leg raises) so if you want strong defined abs it is definitely worth the months of hard work needed to nail it
The first stage of progression is the knees on the floor rollout which as the name suggests means pushing the wheel forward until your upper body is fully extended whilst on your knees. Most reasonably fit people who have already done some core strength exercises will master this stage in no time at all as it is not particularly difficult. However, the leap from this version to the ab wheel rollout that ends with your body fully extended and only your feet and hands on the floor is a huge one that can take several months to master. Once you can comfortably roll the wheel to full extension on your knees there are several methods that can be used to make further progress but the one I used is to do the exercise on an incline. Any stable incline can be used or I guess you could make one easily enough out of some strong planks of wood; personally I used the concrete incline at the end of my drive way which was perfect for the job. When you are using an incline you should find that it is much easier than a flat surface and as a result you can rollout until fully extended fairly quickly. From here it is just a case of using a lower incline by stepping further away from what ever you have used as your strength and control improve until you can finally do the full ab wheel rollout on a flat surface.
Do not rush to master this very difficult exercise, take your time and give yourself many months to nail it. This exercise puts a huge strain on the core muscles particularly as your arms near full extension. To help with this, it is important to keep you abs tensed and you arms locked throughout the movement Pushing your pelvis back slightly before you start to rollout helps keep your lower back straight Make sure your legs are completely straight throughout the rep Once fully extended make sure you return to the starting position by contracting your core muscles strongly and not by bringing your arms underneath your body (Think of a pair of scissors opening fully and then closing, your core muscles represent the middle point of the scissors which does not move and your arms and legs represent the two blades that extend fully and then close fully)
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Facts on strength building
To build pure strength all bodyweight exercises have to be kept within the 1-6 repetition range.
Once you can do the required number of repetitions in an exercise change to a more demanding one
You can build strength and stay the same weight if that is your goal.
Strength training requires short workouts of no more than 30-45 minutes to be most effective.
Facts on muscle building
To build a combination of muscle and strength all exercises have to be kept within the 6-12 repetition range.
The best muscle building diet requires two grams of protein for every kilo of your bodyweight.
The quickest way to build muscle requires an increase in bodyweight.
Each muscle should be trained no more than once or a maximum of twice per week for best results.
Facts on abs building
Diet accounts for 80% of the success in building great abs.
You cannot spot reduce fat from any one area of your body or in other words you cannot pick and choose were to lose fat. It has to be done gradually throughout the whole body.
To lose weight eat 4 or 5 small meals a day with each meal containing protein. This keeps your metabolism high and stops your body going into starvation mode which is when it will store fat.
Do not lose more than 1 or 2 pound of weight per week.
The best three abs exercises are the dragon flag, full abs rollout and full hanging leg raise.
Sit ups and crunches are terrible fat burning exercises. You would have to do 1000 sit-ups every night for over 2 weeks to burn 1 pound of fat.
In one study on rats, one group was given all their food in one meal per day as opposed to the other group which had the same amount of food but in small meals throughout the day. The results showed that ones who ate all there food in one meal put on weight whilst the others did not.
Doing lots of cardio without muscle building will result in large muscle loss because your body will adapt to make the cardio easy by losing the heavy muscle. The result could be someone who has very little muscle but still carries some fat.
Exercises that are weight bearing like running and walking are better for burning calories than non weight bearing ones such as cross trainers and cycling.
Facts on flexibility
All workouts should begin with dynamic stretchinginvolving two sets of 10 to 15 repetitions of each movement used.
All workouts should end with a cool down of static passive stretching.
The quickest flexibility results are gained with isometric stretching.
Isometric stretching should be done towards the end of a workout and never more than 3-4 times per week.