How to Target Your Lower Abs (MAKE THEM VISIBLE!)

If you have lower belly fat or you are just soft in that area, you might be wondering how to target your lower abs and get visible lower abs. In this video, I am going to show you that not only yes, you can preferentially target the lower abdominal muscles, but how to do so in the most effective way

So, do you have a two pack or maybe even  a four pack, but no matter what you do, your lower abdominal region just looks like  crap? Well, guess what, you can do something about it today, you can actually target this area  effectively if you use the right exercises. You see, lucky for us, a lot of research has been done  that actually shows that you can more favorably activate the lower abdominal fibers over the upper  abdominal fibers based upon the exercises that you’re doing. And what we’re basically talking  about is utilizing the bottom up movements rather than the top down. When you start to initiate an  ab exercise like a crunch that starts from the top, moving your chest down towards your  pelvis, that’s a top down movement.

But on the other hand, if you can choose  exercises that start by moving your lower half up towards your chest, that’s a bottom up  movement. And you can see that these fibers will initiate that contraction so we can do something  about it. But now, because I care about you, we’re going to have to have the all-important  public service announcement. You know, the one where I tell you there are limits to your ability  to target. While the exercises that you choose can more effectively target the lower abdominal  region, you’re never going to be able to use these exercises to target a specific area of fat.

You know, the one that you’re carrying down there, no matter which exercises you’re doing  or even how many of them you are doing, you’re not going to be able to undo the  Haagen-Dazs and ring dings you just ate. Now that being said, can we talk about  the exercises? Because if you do these, they’re going to help. And the first exercise up  is actually a variation of a basic reverse crunch, you’ve probably done it before. But pay attention  because there’s three things you need to make sure you get right.

The first thing is you’ve got to  flatten that back out because what that’s doing is creating a posterior pelvic tilt, which is  going to activate those lower abdominal muscles. If you have the ability to slide your hands  under your back, you’ve got too much of an anterior tilt and you’ve already negated some  of the benefits of the exercise. So, your goal should be to not be able to fit your hands  under your back if you’ve done this right. The second thing you need to do is  set the angle of your legs. Ideally, you could do this with a 90-degree bend of  your knees in a 90-degree bend at your hips.

Now, if you want to make this a little bit more  challenging, you would just simply extend the legs a little bit further out so you have more weight  to lift or you just bring your knees a little bit closer to your chest. But the key is once you  establish whatever angle you’re going to use, you need to keep it there and then move the  pelvis and the legs together as one unit. You see a lot of people do this wrong. They just  simply start to swing their legs up and down and all they’re doing is overworking the hip  flexors. As you can see here, that’s not the role of the abdominal muscles.

You want to be  able to curl the pelvis back towards your chest and let the legs go along for the ride. And  not just have the legs drive up and down, which over activates that hip flexor and can  oftentimes lead to back pain. Now, the variation I like to use on this exercise is one that actually  gives you some feedback to let you know you’re doing it right. And we call it the Swiper. So, all you have to do is set that angle, again, based on your ability level and then move the  pelvis backwards towards your head.

And you want to be able to do it long enough that you can swipe  your hands underneath, touch each other, and come back out to your sides. This is going to delay  the time that it takes you to do the exercise, increasing the time under tension and  making those muscles work even harder if you’re just beginning, go a little bit faster  with the hand swipe. But if you’re more advanced, try to deliberate a little bit more by going  slower and making your abs do more work. Exercise number two is another one you  probably tried before, maybe done a lot of, but not like this. And that’s the big difference.

You see, you might call these Seated Knee Tucks, but you want to think of them differently because  you’re not just trying to tuck your knees towards your chest. Instead, think of it like you’re  going to lift your tailbone off of the ground and the knees should go much higher. Try to think  of them going almost as high as your forehead, even if they can’t reach. The point is you’re  looking to create that same posterior pelvic tilt because that’s what’s going to engage those  lower abs. And if you could get this right, the exercise becomes a lot more effective.

If you don’t, you just continue to pull  those knees towards your chest. Once again, you’re just over activating the hip flexors, which  is just going to lead to probably lower back pain, but not help you to target the lower abs like  you’re trying to get the tailbone up on every rep and I promise you better results will come. And speaking of results, if you haven’t gone to Athleanx. com yet, what are you waiting for? We  actually have a step-by-step plans and all you have to do is take our quick program selector  and I’ll find you the program that matches your goals.

Now, back to the exercises. You’re wearing the wrong shirt, Chief. Oh. And that exercise number three is a variation  of a Plank. You guys know how I feel about traditional standard planks.

But this is  way better because it’s way more effective, and it’s called the Plank Knee Slide. And the  one thing that should jump out at you right from the get-go here is that I’m getting into that  posterior pelvic tilt once again. So, I bring my knee in towards my elbow, but then I slide it  up because as I do that, it’s going to lift my pelvis into that natural posterior tilt. Again,  actually engaging those lower ab fibers. And if you’re doing the exercise incorrectly, you  have caused the predominance of the hip flexors.

All you have to do is just slow it down. If you  go slower here, you’ll be able to feel the right muscles doing the work. And ultimately that’s what  we’re trying to do. But if you’re up for even more of a challenge, then maybe you don’t want to  just do all of your exercises down on the floor. Instead, what you can do is just pop yourself up  onto a bar because the bar gives you a chance to do the same thing with a Hanging Leg Raise.

But  nothing changes, you still have to establish that posterior pelvic tilt and you still want to  try to bring your pelvis up as you do the exercise along with your legs. But the difference here  is that the changing body position effectively increases the weight of your legs because you  have to now lift them fully against gravity, almost for the duration of the entire exercise. On the floor, that’s not necessarily the case. Regardless, incorporating the same three  principles we talked about in the beginning is going to make this exercise a lot more  effective than just simply flipping your legs up and down without ever focusing on what’s really  happening with your pelvis. Which made me wonder, Jeff, what are you still doing carrying that  damn muscle marker around?

It s because I m not done yet. You see, there’s two things you  can do to put the science back in strength and actually get more out of the same exercises  I just showed you. And that’s, number one, engaging the adductors. Because we know if we just  squeeze our knees together, which is easily done on three of the four exercises that we can