If you’ve ever wanted to look like you could grate a carrot on your midriff, or crush a block of granite by pinning it in between two of your abs; boy
do we have a workout for you.
If this sounds like something you aspire to, check out the below workouts from Matt Bassetta.
Bassetta is a police officer, certified personal trainer, core specialist, coach and athlete who has trained thousands of police officers and civilians in high-performance fitness.
He explains: “While in the NYPD academy, I started to develop a unique style of training that incorporated weight training, functional fitness, strength training, and tactical training.”
The goal of this is “to become as powerful and explosive as possible while still getting shredded of course,” Bassetta says on his website.
Enter: the following video. In it, we’ve compiled some of Bassetta’s most gut-busting, recent workouts, which – all being well – will endow you with a set of abs Cristiano Ronaldo would be jealous of (either that or leave you sore for a week and put off of working out for a year).
Extreme Core Workouts To Get You Shredded.
From alternating leg kicks and V-ups to L-sits with massive weight plates balanced on his legs (and then “windscreen wipers”), to reverse crunches while holding himself in the air (with a huge weight on his feet) and the most technical version of a plank we’ve ever seen (where he holds a pole and walks his hands up and down it), he truly knows how to blast a set of abs.
According to Very Well Fit, “The V-sit ab exercise builds core strength by working multiple areas of the core at the same time, while also challenging your balance.”
Very Well Fit also states: “The V-sit an effective way to target the rectus abdominis, external obliques, internal obliques, and hip flexors while improving core and trunk balance,” and that “you are not alone if you are unable to do more than 10 to 12 of the V-sit ab exercise before you reach failure,” (or in the case of Bassetta’s extreme V ups, 1 or 2, we’d wager).
Common mistakes for the V-Up include rounding the back and shoulders, and swinging the arms.
As for L-sits, Shape explains that their benefits go way beyond sculpting abs: “Unlike many core exercises that just work the core, the L-sit works your abs, obliques, hip flexors, quads, triceps, shoulders, pecs, and lats.”
“It doesn’t take long to fatigue a number of different muscles with this one, so you’ll get a big bang for your buck with this exercise,” Kari Pearce, 2018 Fittest Woman in the U.S. told Shape of L-sits.
“While working all of these muscle-groups is great, the best part is that you’re working them isometrically—aka holding them in one position for a period of time,” (Shape).
Got it? Now go shred. A world of pain awaits…
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