As you come to the top of the fly, try rotating the dumbbells towards you for a better contraction! I love throwing this variation in!
Try hitting these on incline fly, 3-4 sets of 12 reps! If you experience any shoulder pain or discomfort, stop the movement.
Straight bar curl with slow eccentric💪🏼
•
Looking for something new to try in the gym? Try this curl variation! Some call it a cheat curl, some call it a curl with a slow eccentric. All that’s different about it is that you will proceed with a normal curl then go slow on the way down. This is the eccentric portion of the movement. The reason this can be so beneficial is because muscle and tissue damage is happening primarily on the eccentric portion of the lift. This is allowing more time under tension which can lead to more hypertrophy in the exercise!
•
This was my second bicep exercise today with a few sets in. You can either overload the biceps with a cheat curl and go slow on the way down or keep it pretty controlled the whole way through with lighter weight. Try these next time you hit biceps. Start with 3-4 sets of 8 reps, with about a 4 count on the way down. Let me know what ya think 👍🏼
Was going to start vlogging more on a daily basis and then I dropped my camera today… Going to try fixing it later so I can keep the better quality videos coming! Much love, have a great day!
-Alex Costa-
Wondering if there is anything you can do to get those abs to pop for the rest of summer?
Don’t worry, I am going to give you 3 tips to help show those abs off before summer is over!
I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying “abs are made in the kitchen”? This is true but only to a certain point. First of all, they are not “made” I the kitchen, nutrition and cleaner eating will only help reveal the abs. Let me explain, you may see people that are able to scarf down 3 cheeseburgers and still have abs. Let me say that this could just be genetics or that they have such an incredibly fast metabolism that the moment they start eating, it seems to start burning. With that being said, you can see that some abs can be “made without a kitchen”. Now don’t get this thought in your head that you can eat whatever you want and have abs, a clean diet with less sugar and less bad fat can help reveal those abs quicker than you think.
I have always noticed a better set of abs when my diet and nutrition is in check. I notice when my fat intake is a little lower than normal, I notice better results. Do not cut ALL fats, just get rid of bad fats you have in the diet and drop the number very slightly. Healthy fats play a big role in your health like keeping your heart healthy. Healthy fat is also a crucial part of every cell in the body. There are more benefits but we can cover that in a different article.
So in conclusion I want to state that tip #1 is if you want to reveal those puppies then the eating has to be clean.
Eating clean will NOT grow abs, it will help reveal them like I explained in tip #1 above. Training in the gym will be how you develop the abs. Training abs can be something that is boring and most of us just want to get done and over with. Like any other exercise and workout, it will take time to develop an area of muscles. With that being said, it is important that we pick out good ab exercises that will make up a good workout. Some of the best ab exercises with the most proven abdominal activation are
Now these are just some of the best exercises based of of some studies I have seen and based off of experience and advice from fitness professionals. The studies were listed on ncbi.nlm.nih.gov links in Jeff Nippard’s abdominal science video on youtube. I have these exercises in the Vault of Gainz section on the website if you don’t know how to perform them. These would be a good spot to start if you are looking for efficient ab exercises!
Pick some out and get to work!
Tip #2 brings me to this tip right here. This can sometimes be the make or break point on having abs! A muscle will not grow as efficiently if you do not get a stretch in the muscle. I see this mistake so often in the gym but it is confused because it still burns when hitting half reps. I am not saying you can’t do short range of motion exercises but remember, you are reading an article on getting abs so a full stretch and squeeze will benefit you 100% here. Let me explain a little more with an example in this video below.
Thank you for checking out todays article. Please let me know if you have any questions.
1 on 1 online fitness coaching available – email me at costafitness1@gmail.com
-Alex Costa-
costafitness 