It was good seeing your Google doc workout plan. I'm age 22 and did gymnastics for 14 years. I used weights in gymnastics for some exercises. You mentioned hanging leg raises--they are a gymnast's main over all abs builder. But if you use ankle weights you can add resistance. We did vault dangling sit ups holding a heavy barbell. Those were tough but effective. And general abs training tip is do those exercises that emphasize the lower abs ahead of the upper abs which will fatigue sooner than the lower abs. I got severely beat up at age 16 when some older athletes found me alone on a summer night doing a bar workout. They put me in a full nelson and targeted my abs for over 30 minutes. It was a wake up call to start lifting weights and especially grow my legs. I was small when I got beat up and learning to lift weights also meant learning to eat a lot of food and the power of progressive overload. Some wrestlers helped me out after I got beat up and having friends at school was huge for me. I hope your workout plan gives you the physique you want.
That's both an amazing and impressive story about your lifting journey! I'm very sorry that you were bullied and harassed at such a young age, thank you for sharing such a vulnerable moment. Your advice for abs is great, they are tricky to keep consistent but I probably will incorporate some of the weighted movements and emphasis on lower abs into my next revisions of this plan! Let's keep grinding together!
@@MilesBaur Here's a link to a google doc a university student made about my abs training philosophy. I met him on a college tour visit and we instantly became good friends. He is like an older brother to me. docs.google.com/document/d/1VBWiAaGaGCIBFssIqkWofBGNCwrt-UKFlV3Gk5imuSI/edit?usp=sharing
@@MilesBaur Also thanks for your encouragement. That night I was severely worked over. I was still small and 5'6" and only 145 pounds. My waist was maybe 26". But I was all muscle. As it turned out I had trained my abs so hard for about 10 years by that night that they were rock hard but I didn't know that at the time. As they took turns throwing hard punches my abs didn't give a bit and their fists bounced off the muscle or made a thud as he tried to drive his fist in. They kind of became "friendly" as they saw I was taking their punches and started asking lots of questions about my abs training. I thought they would become friends and stop throwing punches. But No. They got more interested to see how far I could go and which of them could break me. It got so dark and the mosquitos were biting us all that they left me finally. I was on adrenaline and it wasn't that painful at the time. My fear left me when I saw I was taking their punches. And to be honest I remember that the punches felt "good" as in a good workout. I went home and looked at the damage in the mirror. Then the pain started to come and I took ibuprofen. Word got out about the gymnast with rock hard abs and some wrestlers helped me learn to lift weights for hypertrophy. That word and progressive overload were new to me. I grew to 5'9" and 185 lbs by the time I graduated high school and have less than 10% body fat. But unfortunately I also got overly obsessed with building rock hard abs. I had friends who really enjoyed letting me take their punches as part of our abs workouts. I built up a strong capacity to take punches and the other athletes couldn't last more than maybe 20 hard punches. I got into body challenges but won way to fast. I needed to stop taking hard punches after I graduated high school. I had let myself get beat up very badly too many times. My personality is to keep going and try to improve. The more muscular I got the more abuse I could take. Abs recover very quickly and are amazingly strong. I enjoyed challenging them too much and got deep into "abs stunting" which often left me more beat up than I expected. Ha. I'm a complicated guy. I'm doing great at age 22 and very healthy. No longer taking punches. I lift 3-4 days a week and still train abs 4-5 times a week. But no one I know now knows that I took punches for over 2 years in high school. That is behind me and hope it stays there. Getting off social media was life saving.
@@MilesBaur Abdominals are actually very easy muscles to develop well. The key for lower abs is to exercise them first and on hanging leg raises try bringing legs/knees up high to force hip rotation. You can RU-vid search "Brody Shemansky Abs" for his great abs exercisis--he uses the words "Tuck Ups" to mean the hip rotation I mentioned. He is a college gymnast (Iowa) turned bodybuilder. I followed him when I was a very young gymnast. Other tips on abs--if you can train them at a workout of their own you will build maximum growth faster. As a gymnast I trained abs throughout the day and most days of the week. But when I started lifting weights with the wrestlers we did that in the morning. And then later in the day we just trained abs. Abs are actually mostly slow-twitch muscle fibers and can be trained a lot. For example that's why high reps abs exercises are helpful for endurance. Doing weighted planks and the abs wheel are great for the TVA muscles which assist the Abdominals (rectus abdominis). The idea is to force hypertrophy for abs. Once you've built up the abdominals then even when your fat level increases when bulking you will STILL see the packs visibly. That's why I recommend guys who bulk to really intensify their direct abdominal exercising. Abs are such amazing muscles and I THINK a lot of fun to train. Once you get to certain level of abs muscularity then taking them farther is a fun challenge. My thoughts on a rainy Saturday morning.
