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Pickles are considered a “take it or leave it” addition to a meal for most people. The majority of people either absolutely love pickles or hate them with a fiery passion. Pickles come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. I might sound a bit like Bubba Gump from the Forrest Gump movie when I say […]
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As two-time reigning Mr. Olympia Mamdouh “Big Ramy” Elssbiay charges headlong to defend his title at the 2022 edition of the contest, it appears he’s not taking many moments to stop and bask in his past accomplishments. To achieve a historic “three-peat” against a stacked cadre of competitors, the superstar can’t afford to rest on his laurels. With the contest on the horizon on Dec. 16-18, 2022, Elssbiay and his team are preparing for more greatness. How? In the gym.
On Nov. 30, 2022, Elssbiay’s coach, Dennis James, shared a clip of a recent upper-body workout he put the elite bodybuilder through. The short video shows off Elssbiay crushing an incline bench press on a Smith machine, beginning with four 45-pound plates on each end of the bar and using a “drop set” technique — quickly removing one plate per side for high-intensity training with limited rest. It’s another glimpse of Elssbiay seemingly trying to check off every box as he pursues yet another Olympia title in Las Vegas, NV.
This quick peek at a pre-Olympia workout is but another taste of an eventful past few months with Elssbiay in the news and in front of the mirror. As the bodybuilding titan tries to put himself in an exclusive all-time company, various notable figures in the sport have weighed in on his outlook for the 2022 Olympia title.
For example, in early October 2022, while breaking down the top contenders, eight-time Mr. Olympia (1998-2005) Ronnie Coleman predicted another Elssbiay victory. The living legend cited Elssbiay’s seemingly insurmountable size as his reasoning for the prognostication. Meanwhile, in late October 2022, fellow eight-time Olympia winner Lee Haney (1984-1991) noted that he thought Elssbiay’s current status as bodybuilding’s king is, ironically, comparable to Coleman at the peak of his reign.
It shouldn’t be surprising then that coaches like Miloš Šarčev believe Elssbiay will be battling it out at the top against up-and-comers such as Nick Walker.
Elssbiay’s physique has certainly looked the part of a champion who can win three straight titles. In his final update of the off-season in late September 2022, the Egyptian athlete revealed he weighed a mammoth 337 pounds. It’s that sort of trademark mass that might help Elssbiay keep his throne.
While there’s the expectation that some phenoms could push Elssbiay in mid-December, all eyes will likely center on the athlete’s latest quest for glory. With his peers gunning for his esteemed crown, Elssbiay will have to bring his best to the 2022 Olympia stage. It doesn’t appear to be a task he and his coach are taking lightly in the least.
Featured image: @bigdjames on Instagram
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Compared to some of his peers, Brandon Curry’s approach to sharing updates on his progress in preparation for the 2022 Mr. Olympia is a little more discrete. The 2019 Olympia winner may share occasional tidbits from his training, like other top bodybuilders, but he hasn’t been one to regularly disclose many concrete notes about his physique during the 2022 calendar year. With the next iteration of the contest looming on Dec. 16-18, 2022, in Las Vegas, NV, the elite bodybuilder set the table for where he stands.
On Nov. 28, 2022, during an appearance on a podcast with Fouad Abiad Media, Curry discussed expectations for the 2022 Olympia. In the process, while he wasn’t specific because he wanted to “keep things quiet,” the athlete noted that he weighed “above 260 pounds” at the time of the interview. Then, he broke down his outlook for the massive December contest.
For the most part, Curry has kept his nose to the grindstone in recent months. After winning the 2022 Arnold Classic in March, it seems apparent the star bodybuilder kept his head down, honing his physique through strength-building and nutrition.
After revealing his approximate body weight, Curry outlined who he thinks will finish in the top 10. Unsurprisingly, the athlete has himself winning for the second time in four years in Las Vegas.
While he has questions about his overall conditioning, Curry appears to be a fan of debuting Olympia competitor Križánek, in particular. The seasoned Olympia athlete believes Križánek brings enough to the table with other aspects of his body to shine.
“He’s [Križánek] so new, he’s a big guy,” Curry explained. “I think he’s got to get his conditioning better for this show, and he’s going to make an impact this year … I think his conditioning is going to be better by the Olympia. I mean, he’s been dieting for how long? I think the separation in his legs and the shape is going to carry him enough.”
As for his honesty about athletes like Walker — who enters the 2022 Olympia riding a wave of hype — Curry thinks “The Mutant” hasn’t improved enough from his fifth-place debut at the 2021 iteration.
“To me, he [Walker] looks similar to last year’s pre-tanner,” Curry said. “[When] you put the tanner on him, I think he’ll look similar to last year. I don’t think there’s a dramatic difference. I know he’s going to be hard and conditioned.”
Ultimately, Curry thinks comparisons to Walker’s on-stage competitors will be a significant challenge to his Olympia chances.
“His [Walker] thing is, how many comparisons are they going to put him through?” Curry maintained. “That’s going to be the Achilles heel for him. I think the more comparisons he [Walker] has to go through, the more he’ll start to fade.”
With roughly only two weeks to go before the 2022 Olympia at the time of this writing, Curry will soon unveil the physique he’s been keeping under wraps. Whether he makes good on his predictions — especially in capturing a second career Olympia title — is something the bodybuilding world will only know when this former champion returns to the stage.
Featured image: @brandon__curry on Instagram
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Wound healing is an impressive process when you stop to think about it. You’re creating new tissue from scratch. You’re laying down skin, repairing damaged blood vessels, recruiting dozens of immune system mediators to show up to the job site and remake the wounded area. And in most instances, you do a great job of it. The bleeding stops, the wound heals, no scar forms, and the damaged tissue looks and performs as good as new. Remarkable.
But you don’t have to leave it to chance. It turns out that there are many natural ways to heal a wound fast.
Note: these are recommendations for minor wounds you can treat at home. If your wound exhibits any of the following characteristics, consider medical attention:
The good news is that most wounds aren’t that serious and can be treated well at home. Here’s what to do:
The basics are basics for a reason: they work.
Those are the basics, but there’s a lot more you can do to speed up the process.
How the body responds to a severe burn is an extreme display of how the body responds to wounds in general. It goes into metabolic overdrive, and one of the most important nutrients supporting the metabolic rate during wound or burn healing is protein.1
You can make or purchase magnesium chloride oil. To make it, buy magnesium chloride flakes, fill a spray bottle about 3/4 of the way with the flakes, and cover with warm distilled, spring, or reverse osmosis water. Shake to dissolve, then apply it to your skin. It may sting a bit, especially on the wound, but it should assist in healing.
Now, the warmer and more brackish the water, the more likely it is that flesh-degrading bacteria inhabit it. The bacteria in question, vibrio vulnificus, thrives in brackish (1-2% salinity) water warmer than 64°F. So use caution. Anything above 70 degree water I’d avoid with open wounds. But if your ocean is actually cold, like the Pacific on the California coast, and you’re actually in sea water (3-5% salinity) rather than brackish (1-2%) water, you’re probably safe and in my experience you’ll speed up wound healing. I remember doing this as a kid in Maine—just washing my scrapes with cold ocean water. Some of it is probably the magnesium content, as I described in the previous section. But a lot of it can’t be explained by magnesium. There’s something “else” about going into the ocean with scrapes.
As for the “sharks can smell blood from miles away” thing, that’s nothing to worry about. Sharks do have sensitive olfactory bulbs that can detect small concentrations of substances in the water, like blood. But they still obey the laws of physics. The diluted blood still needs to physically reach them, and they have to determine where it’s coming from and whether it’s worth the trouble.
Both infrared and red light (aka “low level laser therapy” or “phototherapy”) show promise in treating and accelerating the healing process for wounds by increasing blood flow, reducing inflammation, and improving collagen metabolism, but there isn’t any established clinical methodology for treating actual wounds with light devices.2 One thing you could try is getting both sunrise and sunset exposure because those are the times of the day most enriched with infrared and red light.
What I’ve done in the past with other types of injuries and general joint pain is use infrared saunas. I like this method a little better because rather than holding a concentrated infrared or red light device directly over the wound and trying to guess how long to apply it, you enjoy the sauna and let indirect rays do the work.
Red light/IR light devices are fairly safe things to try, but I don’t have any specific recommendations for their use for wounds. I am confident, however, that they will probably help. I have and like the Joovv.
Honey works well on wounds, acting as a broad-spectrum antibacterial agent and as a general promoter of tissue healing thanks to its antioxidant compounds, acidity, natural hydrogen peroxide production, and osmotic effect. They haven’t figured out all the reasons why it works, but honey just seems to accelerate wound healing.
Manuka honey gets the lion’s share of the accolades for ist wound healing properties, but there’s pretty good evidence that there are even better honeys. Buckwheat honey, for example, was just identified in a recent study for having the highest levels of compounds with the most wound-healing potential.3
If you’re not sure whether your honey will help you heal, one thing I’ve noticed about honey is that the darker the honey, the better. The darker, the more active, and potentially the more effective at healing wounds. So whether it’s Manuka honey, buckwheat honey, or the dark wildflower honey from your local farmer, pretty much any honey will assist in wound healing. Heck, there’s even evidence that basic sugar, white table sugar can increase wound healing when applied topically. After irrigating and cleaning the wound, apply honey.
I wrote about black seed oil awhile back for oral use as a supplementary food, but it turns out that topical black seed oil is also an effective wound healing accelerator—especially combined with honey.4
Apply a few drops to the wound or scrape. To blend with honey, mix the two together and then apply.
To my knowledge, this specific intervention—fasting for chronic wound healing—hasn’t been tested. But Nrf2 is a pathway activated by fasting that has been shown to improve wound healing in diabetics suffering from long term chronic “slow to heal” wounds and ulcers.5 Start with a 24 hour fast and go from there.
As you may know, most mammals produce their own vitamin C. Humans are one of the few mammals who don’t and have to get it from the diet or via supplementation.
To look at the effect of removing vitamin C from the wound-healing process, scientists genetically altered a group of lab mice so that they no longer produced vitamin C. Whereas a normal mouse produces all the vitamin C it needs, these genetically altered mice did not. So they took the vitamin C-null mice and wounded them. One group of wounded mice got vitamin C in their diets. One group did not. The vitamin C-null mice who got vitamin C in their water healed just as well as the normal mice with vitamin C production intact. The vitamin C-null mice who got no added vitamin C had poor healing.6
These weren’t humans, but humans are very similar to the vitamin C-null mice. Since most animals produce extra vitamin C after being wounded, humans should also eat a little extra vitamin C when they’re recovering from a wound.
Zinc is another necessary co-factor in the wound healing process. A study found that diabetics with ulcers had faster healing and smaller wounds after taking 50 mg of zinc sulfate versus a placebo for 12 weeks.7 Now, diabetics tend to be deficient in zinc, so this may not apply to everyone with a scratch or scrape. Most people following a Primal eating plan get plenty of zinc through red meat and shellfish—but it’s a good idea to make sure you’re eating enough.
I wouldn’t bother with extra zinc if you just have a small scrape, but if it’s more serious, like a bad burn, then there’s no harm in taking some extra zinc.
You don’t have to try all of these together, but some of them work better in concert. I’d do magnesium oil right off the bat after cleaning and dressing it. Maybe rinse it off in the ocean if it was cold enough. I’d take vitamin C and zinc with meals. I’d take collagen before any red light/IR treatment. I’d add honey and black seed oil every time you change the dressing. If the wound was an old one, I’d fast for a day.
How do you heal a wound? What works for you?
Load up on animal protein: meat, eggs, dairy, seafood. Adding 10-20 grams of whey isolate at every meal to top off your normal protein intake is a nice way to hit the numbers, especially since whey is a powerful, efficient source of protein.
Just “protein” isn’t enough. It’s important, but a particular type of protein is also crucial: collagen. It makes sense on an intuitive level why you’d need more collagen when healing, since our skin is made of collagen. And just like taking collagen before a weight training session can increase the amount of collagen deposited into the affected connective tissue, eating extra collagen when healing from a wound can increase collagen deposition and formation in the wounded region. Simply put, wounds increase collagen demands. Aim for 20 grams of collagen each day when healing.
Magnesium oil isn’t really oil. It’s magnesium chloride dissolved in water that takes on a slippery, oily feel. When applied to the skin, you absorb the magnesium—enough to boost levels by over 60%. Magnesium oil has been shown to speed up healing from diaper rash when added to calendula cream, and I’ve personally used it to speed up the healing of cuts and scrapes.[ref]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26894161/
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Amidst an intriguing team competition like the 2022 Giants Live World’s Strongest Nation (WSN), there usually might be a standout performer who shines and takes their strength to the next level. Though predicting who would thrive between Team USA (led by Martins Licis, who replaced Robert Oberst for undisclosed reasons) and Team UK (led by Eddie Hall) would be impossible before the action started. On Nov. 26, 2022, in Liverpool, England, the standout happened to be Team USA’s Gabi Dixson.
During the Hercules Hold portion of the contest — where the competitors must utilize their grip strength to hold massive pillars in their hands for as long as possible — Dixson managed to hold her pillars for 1:08:61. (Note: Both teams were scored by their respective athletes’ collective time.) By the end of the competition, Dixson’s time was the second-longest of any of the participating strongmen and strongwomen, bested only by Team UK’s Mark Felix’s time of 1:28:35.
Felix has earned a reputation in the strength sport community when it comes to grip-strength events, winning the Hercules hold in nearly every appearance and having set the World Record for the event with 1:32 at the 2020 Europe’s Strongest Man (ESM).
In a post on her Instagram, Dixson seemed to beam with pride at just having the opportunity to once again meet a strongperson competitor like Felix. The two apparently had crossed paths before during the 2021 Official Strongman Games (OSG). Dixson recalled a humorous story about her hand size compared to Felix and his famous grip strength.
“I remember last year at [the 2021 Official Strongman Games] when I met [Mark Felix],” Dixson started, “I knew about his rep as the ‘grip G.O.A.T’ [greatest of all time] and was curious how my hand size would measure up in comparison (I have always had big hands for a woman and can palm a men’s basketball). So I ran over to him, briefly introduced myself, and asked him to put his hands up to mine. He very politely obliged, and, of course, his hands were bigger. Duh. The poor fella must have thought I was insane at the time!”
Roughly a year later, it doesn’t appear Dixson lost the significance of a performance which put her name in the same conversation as an apparent role model.
“Who would have thought that just over a year later, we’d go No. 1. and No. 2 on the [2022 WSN] stage amongst some of the best of our peers?!” Dixson wrote. “Life is crazy, y’all, and I am forever grateful for the friends I made on this trip and for Mark [Felix] being so kind about a random no-name coming up to him last year.”
As for the team results, Team UK captured the overall title. That said, Dixson’s individual display of grip prowess wasn’t lost in the shuffle. Far from it. It was an elite athlete showing she’s on par with someone she seemed to look up to.
Featured image: @giantslivestrongman on Instagram
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A general perusal of Ken Cooper’s competitive resume and social media platforms will make his Instagram display name “Gingercules” quite appropriate — a play on words concerning Cooper’s hair color and the famed Roman mythological hero Hercules, known for otherworldly strength. He lived up to this public moniker again with a recent upper-body training accomplishment.
On Nov. 28, 2022, Cooper shared an Instagram clip of himself completing lateral raises with 100-pound dumbbells. Per the caption of his post, Cooper’s initial aim was to do 10 reps for a personal record (PR), but an urging from his coach had the athlete complete a 13-rep PR instead. Cooper’s lateral raise set might be even more impressive, considering he detailed that it came near the end of an extensive overall shoulder workout.
Cooper’s training updates these days could hold more significance given what he’s endured health-wise. The athlete suffered a freak injury to both knees during the United States Powerlifting Association (USPA) West Coast Classic in October 2021, while going for a 337.5-kilogram (744-pound) back squat. He tore two tendons and six ligaments while needing a total of 70 staples and was confined to a wheelchair for part of his recovery.
A little over a year later, in October 2022, Cooper shared a video where he deadlifted 412.5 kilograms (909 pounds) raw. Its purpose was to seemingly commemorate all the adversity he overcame on the anniversary of his unfortunate injury. Now, as the 2022 calendar year comes to an end, Cooper appears to be back in the full swing of things, displaying various other powerful sample sizes of his leg strength — like a 310-kilogram (683-pound) raw deficit deadlift for six reps in mid-November 2022.
Knowing that, his recent dumbbell lateral raise PR might just be another noteworthy footnote in the growing career of a potentially dynamic lifter.
Regarding competitions, Cooper doesn’t have an extensive history, featuring in just a handful of career contests at the time of this writing. He does, however, have enough of a quality picture that illustrates how he could fare in the future on sanctioned lifting platforms. According to Open Powerlifting, Cooper won the 2022 USPA West Coast Classic event while competing raw and in the 140-kilogram weight class.
Here’s an overview of his top stats from the contest:
*Note: Cooper did not squat at the competition.
With his power and strength apparently returning back to a high level, a bright competitive outlook could be on the horizon for Cooper. Regardless of what happens next, what seems clear is that he won’t let an unforeseen traumatic event stop him from aiming high with his ambitions in the gym.
Featured image: @gingercules on Instagram
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After sterling first-place performances at the 2022 Texas Pro and the 2022 Arnold Classic UK, Chinedu Andrew Obiekea, a.k.a. “Andrew Jacked,” is undoubtedly hoping for a shining debut at the 2022 Mr. Olympia. As the potential bodybuilding phenom of the 2022 calendar year, some established icons already think he’s destined for greatness. In light of that, the athlete seems to understand the value of taking cues from those who have been there and done that.
On Nov. 23, 2022, Jacked posted a video on his YouTube channel where he works through a back workout while guided by seven-time 212 Olympia champion James “Flex” Lewis. The video is appropriately entitled “Paying Attention to Detail,” given that it takes place during the final stages of Jacked’s preparation for the Olympia, being held on Dec. 16-18, 2022, in Las Vegas, NV.
Here’s an overview of the back routine Lewis takes Jacked through as he prepares for the biggest competitive moment of his young career so far.
As directed by Lewis, Jacked starts his workout by warming up with a few sets of standard bodyweight pull-ups. Jacked uses a “suicide grip” — where one doesn’t wrap their thumb around a bar or barbell — to perform the pull-ups. The purpose of this change-up was to focus more on refining his back rather than strengthening his arms, while also disengaging Jacked’s forearms after he mentioned having a slight muscle strain.
Jacked and Lewis next shift to chest-supported low rows at a high volume. The aim of this specific movement was to build thickness in the back while forcing the athletes to isolate their back muscles. It is here where Lewis stressed an “attention to detail” beyond simply lifting heavy weight.
“To me, right now, it’s all about trying to get these little details out,” Lewis explains. “Because we all know you can train and put [expletive] six plates on the machine but to get a good detail out, that’s why you pose, pose, and pose. There’s no weight involved in posing, right? You’re just holding the pose, and when you’ve done that over weeks, you see all those [details].”
Lewis wanted to challenge Jacked’s lattisimus dorsi muscles a bit more, in particular, making a superset of chest-supported rows and straight-arm pulldowns with cables a natural step in this workout. Lying face-down on an incline, Jacked’s lower lats were stressed with the rows, while the pulldown variation further worked the muscle without assistance from surrounding body parts. Lewis emphasized using a slow motion for both movements and little rest between sets.
Lewis and Jacked elect to do a variation of the traditional lat pulldown by performing it from a kneeling position while using a closer grip. The lats are still engaged and significantly stretched, while the kneeling position and differing grip also allow the core and pectorals muscles to also enjoy a measure of work.
To conclude their workout, Lewis and Jacked throw in one more lat-muscle oriented movement with some seated rows. This closer, in addition to improving back strength and size, may also accentuate better posture for the athlete.
Knowing what Lewis has accomplished in his career, Jacked sees the icon as having a lot to offer someone still looking to make their mark. While he definitely knows how to take care of his body, Jacked seemed to appreciate Lewis taking the time to walk him through this workout. As the most important performance of Jacked’s career looms on the horizon, learning from the best could be the best way to properly prepare.
“The push [Lewis gave me] was crazy,” Jacked said. “That’s why I need someone that can take over. I just work based on my preference, and that’s why I am still in the maintenance phase. I need someone that can get me past my limits which is what I will definitely work on in my off-season after the 2022 Olympia. Because to be the best, I have to work with the best.”
Featured image: andrewjacked on Instagram
The post Andrew Jacked Trains Back With Advice From Flex Lewis as Olympia Debut Nears appeared first on Breaking Muscle.
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In their free time, most 16-year-olds probably aren’t working on building their strength in the gym. Rather than polish up their staple lifts, they’re likely playing video games, hanging out with friends, or just chilling out on the couch. Knowing this, it’s clear that powerlifter Morgan Nicholls is no average teenager.
On Nov. 28, 2022, Nicholls shared an Instagram clip of himself successfully locking out a 233.6-kilogram (515-pound) bench press with wraps. According to the caption of his post, the pressing feat is a personal record (PR) for the young athlete. Considering Nicholls’ age, it might be even more impressive how easily the lift appears to come to him the moment he lowers his stacked barbell onto his chest.
Nicholls’ bench press PR might be a seamless follow to what has been a productive 2022 for the competitor. In April 2022, Nicholls captured a 274.3-kilogram (605-pound) deadlift during a training session. If the pull were to occur in an official meet, it would’ve surpassed Arslan Bochkaryov’s World Record 250-kilogram deadlift (551.1-pound) in the 90-kilogram weight class by over 20 kilograms (44 pounds).
While he’s already showing off incredible power for his age (or any age), Nicholls doesn’t have an extensive powerlifting history. According to Open Powerlifting, the athlete has participated in just one sanctioned meet thus far — the 2020 Southern Powerlifting Federation (SPF) GP Summer Bash. He came in first place in the Teenage 13-15 division while competing in the 90-kilogram weight class with wraps. (Note: He actually finished his back squat with wraps but managed his bench press and deadlift raw.)
Here’s an overview of Nicholls’ only official powerlifting contest appearance to date:
At the time of this writing, Nicholls hasn’t outlined when he plans to feature as a powerlifter again. That doesn’t mean he isn’t staying busy. Even quickly glancing at his Instagram bio should disclose he has quite a jam-packed schedule. When not crushing it as a lifter, Nicholls is a running back and linebacker for his high school football team, and even participates in track and field as a discus thrower.
While it’s not certain where he’ll take his talents next, it’s obvious Nicholls is an ambitious athlete. To live up to his mother’s strength sports legacy — a four-time Ms. Olympia and International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness (IFBB) Hall of Famer in Kim Chizevsky-Nicholls — he has to aim high. He’s certainly not falling short thus far.
Featured image: raising_mayhem on Instagram
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It’s been an eventful year for Larry “Wheels” Williams. Amidst various training updates and tidbits, the athlete disclosed he would stop using steroids indefinitely in a late-August 2022 video on his YouTube channel. After openly leaning on some measure of performance enhancing drugs for years, his rationale for stopping was that he wanted to see how his performance would fare without such assistance. As a substitute, because Wheels’ body no longer naturally produced testosterone, he went on Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT). His ongoing experiment on that front seems to be going swimmingly so far.
On Nov. 28, 2022, Wheels shared an Instagram video of himself capturing a 305-kilogram (672.4-pound) raw back squat while on TRT. Per the caption of his post, Wheels’ intention was to garner as many reps as possible (AMRAP) with the weight. While it appeared like he may have been able to lock out another rep, Wheels stopped squatting after six reps, suggesting that was his AMRAP with the massively loaded barbell. The athlete wore a lifting belt and knee wraps, and completed the set in his socks.
Editor’s Note: Breaking Muscle is not making a moral or ethical statement about the athlete’s actions. This article reports on what the athlete discloses about themselves. Breaking Muscle is not a certified medical resource and does not endorse the use of performance enhancing drugs.
In Wheels’ case, as he continues his new fitness and strength journey, he hasn’t shied away from being an open book in 2022. Especially when it comes to any milestones and potential pitfalls.
Before Wheels revealed he was now on TRT instead of steroids, he shared various staggering training briefs — including a 299.8-kilogram (661-pound) paused bench press in early April 2022, a 425-kilogram (937-pound) deadlift from May 2022, and a 421.8-kilogram (930-pound) deadlift for three reps later that same month.
As he prepped for his strongman return later in the summer of 2022, Wheels disclosed he had suffered an unfortunate back injury while deadlifting heavy weight. In the interest of precaution and a full recovery that didn’t derail other goals, Wheels withdrew from the 2022 Middle East’s Strongest Man contest. He cited a long-term outlook where he would eventually vie for an official 456.3-kilogram (1,000-pound) pull.
Wheels wasn’t done. After his announcement that he would stop steroid use, Wheels completed a 224.5-kilogram (495-pound) AMRAP squat for 15 reps in late September 2022. If that weren’t enough, he worked out with legendary eight-time Mr. Olympia (1998-2005) Ronnie Coleman in early November 2022. Amidst all of this excitement, one thing seems certain — Wheels will keep himself busy regardless of potential adversity and new experimentation.
The weeks and months ahead might prove pivotal for Wheels. As he continues to train while on TRT, he could soon outline what his next competitive goals will be. He might return to preparing for that 1,000-pound deadlift milestone, or he may find himself on a strongman platform. Regardless of his next fitness decision, it’s clear Wheels won’t be afraid to push himself in new fashions.
Featured image: larrywheels on Instagram
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If you listed the most popular ab exercises, there would be some familiar contenders like crunches, planks, and leg raises, no doubt. But one dark horse in the race is the Russian twist.
You’ll see it performed by bodybuilders, fitness influencers, “functional fitness” athletes who wear toe-gripping shoes that look like gloves, group-fitness worshipers, and cardio enthusiasts.
One reason why it’s so regularly used is that it lets you really feel you abdominal muscles working, almost irrespective of how well the exercise is actually performed. You can do it “wrong” and still feel some kind of burn because you’re bending and twisting. A better reason why it’s so popular is because it targets nearly every muscle in your core, including the rarely targeted oblique muscles.
Here’s how to make sure you do the Russian twist the right way to get that deep burn in your abs and obliques, not your lower back.
The Russian twist is performed seated on the ground and looks quite simple, but there are some very important steps that often get overlooked. These small changes will make a big difference.
Sit on the ground, bend your knees, and point your feet up to dig your heels into the ground. Bring your feet and heels close to your glutes and hips, which will be your fulcrum to move your upper body. Having your feet closer to your hips is going to give you more stability. Hold your hands together in front of your chest.
Form Tip: Keep your feet flexed and pointed up during the entire movement. Pointing your feet is going to do two things: First, it’s going to keep your weight shifted backward through your hips and into the ground, giving you more stability. Second, it’s going to help engage your hamstrings, which will then help to tuck your pelvis under during the movement. This helps engage more of your lower lower abs and internal oblique muscles instead of your hip flexors. (1)
Imagine you’re trying to hold an orange between your chin and upper chest. Tuck your chin down to hold it in place. This will stack your rib cage over your pelvis, so you can flex your abs and maintain core tension. It will also encourage your upper back to round so your lats can “wrap” around your ribs. If you try twisting your body while keeping a tall posture with your shoulders down and back, you’ll have the mobility of an elephant on a tightrope.
Be sure to roll back, not just lean back. If you quickly lean back from your hips, you’re likely going to extend your spine and lose the stable position you worked to get into. Instead, imagine you’re about to do a backwards roll and “uncurl” yourself into position. Allow your center of mass to be drawn backwards and use your feet to engage your hamstrings for stability.
Form Tip: How far should you roll back? If you’re laying on the floor, you’ve gone too far. If you can’t feel your heels digging hard into the floor, you probably haven’t rolled back far enough. Aim for a five or six out of 10 effort to hold the position.
With control, twist as much of your torso as possible to one side. If you’re doing it right, it should feel like someone karate chopped you in the outside part of your obliques (muscles on the sides of your abs). Then, rotate all the way to the other side. Alternate back and forth between sides with each repetition.
Form Tip: Look over your shoulder behind you, trying to get your shoulders to 12 and six on an imaginary clock. Each person will have a slightly different range of motion depending on their mobility and strength, so work within your own comfortable range.
Make sure that when you’re performing the Russian twist, it looks good and feels good. Don’t let your technique slip as you fatigue and don’t grind through painful, improper form. Here are some common mistakes to watch out for.
If your chin and rib cage aren’t tucked when you roll back into position, then you may end up in extension with your abs are in a lengthened position. The more extended you are, the more lengthened your abs will be. This shifts stress away from your targeted ab muscles.
When a muscle contracts, it shortens, so although you might “feel” your ab muscles working, you’re not setting yourself up for success to properly train and strengthen them since they won’t be able to effectively shorten or fully contract.
Avoid it: Don’t roll back quite as far. That way, you can maintain a better chin and ribcage tuck. Focus on making the exercise harder by using a full rotation, not by trying to lean as far back as possible.
This one is one of the most common problems. Some people swing their arms from side to side like a malfunctioning lawn sprinkler, but they’re not rotating their torso or shoulders.
With this misapplied “technique,” you might feel some tension in your abdominals because they are simply resisting rotation, but there’s not much working in the obliques because they’re not moving through any real range of motion.
Avoid it: Keep your hands as close to your body as possible. You can use them to help guide the rotation to each side, but the farther your hands move away from your center, the more your arms will want to swing. Until you master the movement, keep your hands close.
When your legs are extended too far, it’s more difficult to shift your center of mass back while keeping your hips tucked under properly. This means there’s less load, tension, work sent through your abdominal muscles and obliques, and you’ll most likely feel the burn in your hip flexors and the top part of your quads (thighs).
Straight legs also make it difficult to drive your heels into the ground, which will limit your hamstring engagement and affect your abdominal activation.
Avoid it: Pay attention to your entire lower body. Bend your knees, pulling your feet and heels back towards your glutes and hips. Point your feet and dig your heels into the ground. This will help to engage your hamstrings and lengthen your quads and hip flexors so they can’t take over.
One general goal of training is to gradually progress each movement or exercise for consistent improvement. However, almost anyone can make an exercise “feel” more challenging. You need to make sure you’re are making it harder in a productive way.
Reaching your arms forward, away from your body’s center, is going to create a longer lever with increased challenge for your entire core. When you rotate, don’t let your arms take over or move separately from your torso.
Be sure to fully rotate by looking over your shoulders. The altered leverage is going to add more relative load for increased challenge, especially in the end ranges of motion.
Adding resistance is the most common way to make a bodyweight ab exercise more challenging. By using a dumbbell, or a single weight plate, you increase the force needed to rotate your torso. Be sure to continue using a full range of motion, aiming your shoulders in a 12 and six position.
Begin holding the weight close to your chest. As you gain strength, you can hold the weight farther from your body, in the arms-extended position, before going heavier. This lets you squeeze more overall progression from relatively lighter weights.
Using a decline bench will shift more of your weight backwards because of the steeper angle working against gravity. Even though your legs are securely hooked into the bench, you should still actively try to dig your heels in to get your hips tucked under.
The increased angle of the decline bench should also allow each individual to get more range of motion towards the end of each rep.
Many ab exercises train your central core muscles — the abdominals above your hips. The Russian twist incorporates rotation, which not only recruits additional muscles but creates more stimulus for a variety of results.
Ab training alone won’t deliver a great set of abs. You need to pay attention to calories and nutrition, too. But incorporating the Russian twist into your ab workout can give some attention to your oblique muscles, while hitting your main “6-pack” abs with a serious growth stimulus. Training your abs for muscle growth won’t create a blocky-looking stomach area, but it will play a role in creating a classic washboard look.
Rotational movements are sometimes overlooked when it comes to building a strong, powerful core. (2) Training your abs with rotation, like the Russian twist, can help to build inter-muscular coordination that can carryover to the field, while building general core strength and stability that can help support heavy lifting.
The Russian twist works more than just “your abs.” It emphasizes your oblique muscles, while calling much of your entire upper body into play.
The obliques are the muscles on the sides of your abs that frame the six-pack. They run diagonally at an oblique angle, which is where they get their name. More accurately, there are two types of oblique muscles on each side of your body — the internal obliques and the external obliques. The internal obliques are found deeper in your core, while the external obliques are more visible.
When twisting your body, the external obliques are responsible for contralateral rotation — the external oblique on your left helps you rotate to the right, and vice versa. These are the prime mover in the beginning part of each rep. Once you have rotated past the midpoint, the internal oblique is recruited for ipsilateral rotation — the internal obliques on your right help you complete rotation to the right. The internal obliques are not often trained, so don’t be surprised if you feel a deep burn at the end range of each twist.
The classic six-pack is actually a series of muscles known as the rectus abdominis. During the Russian twist, the rectus works to brace down and resist movement, because they’re primarily involved in traditional flexion exercises like crunches or sit-ups. This muscle works isometrically to keep your upper body stacked and stable during the twist.
Like the film Inception where there’s a dream within a dream, the transverse abdominis is essentially a set of abs under another set of abs. It is a thin sheet of muscle found underneath the rectus abdominis. The transverse abdominis, or TVA, primarily works isometrically to maintain postural tension. It also increases abdominal wall pressure to stabilize the spine and pelvis when moving, including during rotation. (3)
As their name suggests, the hip flexors are primarily involved in creating flexion (bending) at your hips. Reaching the top portion of that hip flexion, with your legs bent at an angle to your upper body, is when you can create a posterior pelvic tilt to target the lower abdominal muscles. (4)
The erector spinae, or spinal erectors, are deep muscles on your back that sit underneath the more well-known back muscles like the lats, rhomboids, and trapezius. The erector spinae extends your upper body backwards and creates lateral (side to side) flexion. During the Russian twist, they are involved more toward the end of each twist as your body reaches its peak range of motion.
The Russian twist isn’t just some random ab exercise. Because it trains your core in a unique way, with rotation instead of more traditional flexion, it can play a key role in your workouts.
This bodyweight ab exercise fits efficiently into a abdominal circuit performed at the end of any workout. Combine this with timed sets — performing continuous repetitions in a given time instead of counting individual reps — and you’ve got a winning pair.
Timed sets let you just focus on the quality of your work, and the clock will save you at the end. Good options are to use either 30 second of work with 30 of rest or 40 seconds of work with 20 seconds rest. Pick three to five exercises, including the Russian twist, and do two to four rounds at least twice per week.
If you’re performing the Russian twist as a standalone exercise, not part of a circuit, you can burn your core using two to three sets of 15 to 25 reps. Remember that turning both to the left and right counts as one rep. You’ll reduce your workload if you count “right, one, left, two, right, three, left, four,” etc.
Once you’ve gotten a handle on the basic Russian twist, you can upgrade the exercise to hit your abs with more difficult movements.
When paired with a specialized fat loss diet, this progression can be a key player in developing abs that look and feel like they have been carved from rich mahogany. As you rotate to look over your right shoulder, pull your right knee in towards your chest. But the major key is to not touch your elbow and knee together, as if you were doing a classic bicycle crunch.
To get a full range of motion using full hip flexion, your left elbow should pass your right knee as you twist. Keep the opposite foot braced and hooked into the floor. You have to go slow with this one because it involves some coordination. Try taking three seconds to reach each rotation and hold the end position for a brief pause.
This movement is similar to the basic dumbbell Russian twist, but brings the arms in an overhead motion to further change the leverage and recruit the shoulders, serratus, and upper back muscles.
Don’t sacrifice range of motion. Bring the weight from one side of your body, to a straight-arm overhead position, to the opposite side of your body.
Sometimes called a full contact twist, this standing movement is one of the more athletic variations because it’s performed in a standing position and involves your entire lower body.
Use a barbell in a landmine unit to allow a smooth rotation from side to side. This exercise can be done with your feet stationary while moving the weight from hip to hip or, as a more advanced variation, pivoting on the balls of your feet and moving the weight from mid-thigh to mid-thigh.
No, only body fat can do that. Training any muscle, even your abdominals and obliques, will build lean muscle which improves your physique and your performance.
What some people call “love handles” is actually body fat stored generally around the oblique region. Body fat is stored throughout your body in a genetically determined manner and training the muscle underneath that stored fat will not increase those fat levels. If it did, than anyone who trained their triceps with weights would be at risk of creating jiggly “batwings” instead of building muscular arms.
You could lift your feet, but it wouldn’t really be harder in a productive way. The point of having your feet down is to stabilize your hips and more effectively isolate the movement through your abdominal muscles. With your feet up in the air, it’s going to be harder to keep your pelvis tucked and harder to stop your hip flexors taking over, which both reduce ab activation. It will also be harder to achieve the end ranges of motion because your hips aren’t locked in place and your entire body will be moving as you twist.
It can be, when it’s done right. A medicine ball (just like a dumbbell or weight plate) does add load, which is a straightforward way to increase the intensity of any exercise. But the added load shouldn’t distract you from the main technique objective, which is fully rotating your body, not just moving the ball from side to side.
If you use a medicine ball, tap it just behind each hip as you twist to either side. This cue will remind you to use a longer range of motion.
When you design your next ab workout, don’t overfocus on crunch variations and planks. Rotational exercises like the Russian twist target underappreciated muscles like the obliques and help to develop serious core power. Once you learn to perform the movement correctly, you’ll be on the way to creating a stronger core with a complete and well-developed set of abs.
Featured Image: Shopping King Louie / Shutterstock
The post How to Do the Russian Twist for Powerful Abs appeared first on Breaking Muscle.
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