ab training question

i was reading Ian Kings ultimate abs in last weeks issue. i can’t do some of the excersises because it says not to anchor your feet. well i am tipping backwards because my feet are coming off the ground. why does he say not to anchor feet? what do i do?

Lie on floor with your feet pressed into the bottom of a wall, this takes the place of anchoring the feet, which supposedly (and probably does) works your thighs to the exclusion of your abs. This is for crunches.

When doing a conventional sit up with your feet anchored; you predominantly use the hip flexors, not the abs. If you don’t anchor the feet, this forces you to use your abdominal region to perform the lift instead of pointlessly jerking the hip flexors.

Just do the negative or eccentric portion of the exercise until you get stronger. Concentrate on lowering yourself slowly, especially the last four or five inches...then help yourself back up and do it again. Squeeze your glutes hard and keep your feet down.

I hit a blank when I replied earier, like Joel says, it’s the hip flexors that get the work if your feet are anchored. What I described above is a janda crunch, you can also buy the Pavelizer at I think dragondoor.com that does the same thing, but I don’t know if it’s worth the price, as the feet pressed into the floorboard of the wall (press hard) is free! Crunch and oblique crunch with no equipment!

ndogg, you’re tipping over cause your abbs are weak. Your hipflexors are always used in conjuction with your abbs (regards of what the evil russian says), however, they are recruited in varing degrees. And different parts of your abbs are also recruited. In short suck it up and do the best you can, you will improve with time, you can try eccentrics, but if you are tipping over on the concentric you will most likely also tip on the downward.