The Abdominal Training Secrets Interview-Part 3

The Abdominal Training Secrets Interview
With Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
www.BurnTheFat.com
And David Grisaffi, CHEK, CFT, PN
www.FlattenYourAbs.net

TV: You train regular people and you also train professional athletes, especially boxers and golfers. Is there a big difference in how athletes and regular people should train?

DG: Each of them has distinct differences. So to plop down a “canned program” for everyone would lead to failure and would reflect poorly on me. I take each client one at a time. In my Flatten Your Abs e-book, I provide many different levels so each individual can pick the level that fits them best when they start out. Everyone is not equal. The boxers in general, are more athletic, so one big difference is that I change their program more often to keep them fresh. Let’s say I have 6 weeks before a tough fight, I may change the workout 3 - 4 times. Their nervous systems are highly adaptable and need the change. Someone who just wants to start a basic weight-training program could stay on the same program for the entire 6 weeks and get results. This is because their nervous systems are not as highly developed.

TV: Lets talk about six pack abs and flat stomachs, because that’s another one of your specialty areas and that’s what I really wanted to focus on in this interview the most. You wrote a course on abdominal training- it’s called FIRM AND FLATTEN YOUR ABS and you’re now offering it as an e-book download on the Internet and it’s starting to get really popular. What made you decide to write a book about abdominal training when there’s already so much information out there?

DG: Hmmm.…to be honest it was my friend Don Lemmon. He invited me to write a chapter about core conditioning in his book, and I said “sure”. One thing lead to another and that one chapter developed into an entire e-book of my own. I had never done an entire book before with editing, pictures and so on, but I just took a lot of the information I had learned from experience and from all my mentors, put my head down, went to work and wrote the FIRM AND FLATTEN YOUR ABS e Book. It took me about 3 months. I guess one of my main motivations for writing it was because there is so much bad information and so many bad abdominal machines and devices out there…

TV: I noticed you don’t recommend ANY sit ups in your course. Why is that?

That’s correct. After studying many greats like Vladimir Janda, Diane Lee, Paul Chek, Richardson and Jull, I discovered that the hip flexors (illiopsoas) are frequently overworked and that can lead to muscle imbalances and low back pain. So I said, why continue aggravating the problem with sit ups? In my e book this is a topic I cover in detail.