YNN.com

Ithaca / Cortland

Change region

  68º

You are not signed in  |  Sign in here  |  Help

You're viewing a lite version of ynn.com

Time Warner Cable customers: Sign in with your TWC ID for video access.

Get my TWC ID. | Get TWC service. | Read the FAQ.

05/28/2012 05:00 AM

Healthy Living: Achieving a six-pack

In today's Healthy Living report, Kafi Drexel is with personal trainer Gregg Cook, with some tips on how to achieve core strength and that seemingly impossible six-pack.

  To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

So a lot of us see the six-pack as one of the ultimate signs of being physically fit.
But also for a lot of us, we see it as almost next to impossible to achieve.

I'm here with Gregg Cook of Equinox and he said you can do it and there's actually a science behind it. So Gregg what do you mean by that?

“The science behind the six pack is ultimately about achieving a core or a musculature around your spine that not only supports and stabilizes the spine but also is mobile,” said Gregg Cook, a Personal Trainer.

Okay so you've boiled it down to obviously for the six pack, six pack, six moves, six principles and you are going to show us those right now.

Anyone can log onto q.equinox.com for free to check out Cook's six-pack tutorial. Some of his tougher moves guaranteed for ripped abs once you've had some serious experience include flexion or bending moves like leg lifts on a pull-up bar, a headstand where you slowly move your legs from side-to-side for a lateral flexion move, and pull-ups with a Kung Fu Kick for a rotational ab move. Until you can work up to any of that, you might want to get started with an stability move called the star plank.

I actually lifted myself off the ground. Challenging, but almost doable. Then there's the Roll Back, Jump Up" mobility move.

“This one is all about basically breaking your fall, rolling gracefully and getting right up again. So you are going to take most of your body weight on the back leg. Roll down, round the spine, tuck your chin. Roll it back up drive to that standing leg,” said Cook.

And you can try topping your six-pack workout off with an opposite leg, opposite arm extension exercise.