Bored of doing the same old sit-ups down at the gym?
Slugging your guts out doing crunches in a desperate effort to get anything that vaguely resembles a six pack?
Stop right there, we know a man who can help. He’s got a bloody eight pack for f**k’s sake – we should know, we’ve counted the abs.
Bodybuilder Ulisses is known the world over for his eye-popping abdominal muscles.
The one thing you notice about him (other than the fact he’s got a mid-section like the cobbles of Coronation Street, and one of those one-word names like ‘Prince’ or ‘Sting’) is the fact he doesn’t do ‘normal’ sit-ups.
In every core training video he’s pulling some ninja s**t that we’ve never seen before in our lives – stuff that looks both deeply unpleasant but devastatingly effective.
Here are 10 of Ulisses’ greatest abs exercises for you to try, if you’ve got the stomach for it…
1. Bench Press with Crunches/Leg Raises
We know you’ve all got busy lives and it’s hard cramming chest and abs into a week. So f**k it, do what Ulisses does and hit both at the same time.
He gets two for the price of one here by doing barbell bench presses (with a not-too-shabby weight on) and throws in some core exercises in while he’s doing them.
Ulisses is doing crunches and leg raises as he’s bench pressing, but says you can throw any moves into the mix from leg flutters to scissor kicks.
https://instagram.com/p/6U7K0jGql7/?taken-by=ulissesworld
2. T-Bar Press and Russian Twists
Ulisses isn’t messing around when he comes to do his core. He utilises the T-Bar for three different moves from hard, to very hard, to how-the-hell-does-he-do-that hard.
The first is a variation on a regular sit-up, but he adds a single-arm shoulder press at the top of the movement, for that extra bite.
Then he gets into balancing mode while pressing the weight up and down. This keeps his core under constant tension from the balance while contracting his abs with the press.
Cranking it up a notch again, he stays balancing, but then performs Russian twists with the bar coming across his body and working the obliques. Looks fancy, does a job.
https://instagram.com/p/6FBlPBmqh6/?taken-by=ulissesworld
3. Spiderman Med Ball Roll-Outs
If you want to look like a superhero, you’ve got to train like one. Enter the Spiderman medicine ball roll-out.
We’re pretty sure it’s how Peter Parker got his spidey six pack and now we know it’s how Ulisses got his.
The first clip of him doing the barbell sit-ups with chains on looks pretty gnarly too, if you want to look like a total badass.
https://instagram.com/p/54hVJxGqt3/?taken-by=ulissesworld
4. Balance press
Anything that hits two lots of muscles in one gets the JOE thumbs up. Ulisses seems to have got the old gym multi-functioning down to an art.
We’ve already seen the bench press and T-bar variations, but here the man is using a 20kg core bag.
The exercise will really work those stomach muscles hard, and it won’t do your front delts and chest any harm either.
Utilising different implements, with different weights and different hand grips will change the stress on your muscles – and it means you’ll never quite get comfortable with the movement.
https://instagram.com/p/5eXUyyGqr7/?taken-by=ulissesworld
5. Plank Spider Crawl
If you’ve not guessed it by now, Ulisses is some kind of superhero. We’re pretty sure this is a video of him scaling a wall with weights strapped to his feet.
Whatever it is, it really looks like it’s working his abs. The movement is a hybrid of the dreaded ‘plank’, but he’s just added not one, but two extra layers of difficulty – side crunches, then weights on his feet. Nasty.
https://instagram.com/p/5Y-2kqmql9/?taken-by=ulissesworld
6. One arm barbell roll-outs
Why do something with two arms when you can do it with one? This seems to be Ulisses motto – any way he can find of torturing his abs that little bit more, he does.
We’ve probably all tried a roll-out at some point in time. They’re great for developing your abdominal muscles, but they’re bloody tough.
Performing them using one arm instead of two will make your core muscles work even harder to keep you stable – so, if you can do them, you’ll get even more benefit.
If you’re a normal human, like us, then maybe start off with the double arm. Alternatively if you’re completely mental, why not add a weighted vest?
https://instagram.com/p/5HJ5e3GqlY/?taken-by=ulissesworld
7. Barbell Twists
If there’s one thing we admire about Ulisses (apart from having a mid-section harder than a blacksmith’s anvil) it’s his ingenuity when training his abs.
Bodybuilding is all about figuring out which movements work the muscles best. These barbell twists look like something out of a Red Bull extreme kayaking video.
That same movement that pro kayakers use to propel themselves down a raging river, turns out to be really good at hitting your oblique muscles.
Finding functional movements like this, then replicating them in the gym is a great way to put different stressors on your muscles.
https://instagram.com/p/46hyoKGqk8/?taken-by=ulissesworld
8. Hanging knee raises
There’s no movement in the gym that you can’t make better by adding weight – that’s a straight up fact. Bored of planking? Stick a plate on your back, then try again. Want to get more out of your crunches? Try clutching a 20kg plate when you’re repping out, and you’ll soon feel the benefit.
Nobody knows this better than Ulisses by the looks of it. Once your body adapts to doing a movement using bodyweight resistance alone, you can either just up the reps and go to ‘burn out’ the muscle – or you can increase the resistance with weights.
These hanging knee raises are a great example. They’re really good for working your abdominals, but once you get used to them – stick some weight on to make them more challenging on your muscles.
https://instagram.com/p/4Tr236Gqrs/?taken-by=ulissesworld
9. Banded leg raises
If you’re only just clocking on to the benefits of resistance bands, welcome. They’re a great tool to add resistance (obviously) to exercises in the gym. You can pretty much add them to anything from squats to bench press – and we’ve even seen NFL star JJ Watt slinging them into his kettlebell swings.
They work by adding progressive resistance – so the more it stretches, the higher the resistance and the harder your muscles have to work to shift them.
Ulisses has been playing around with them, to put his abs through that little bit more hell. One great way he’s found is by adding a band to his leg raises, to work his abdominals.
F**k it. Do what Ulisses does and strap a few kettlebells to your feet while you’re there.
https://instagram.com/p/3s-wXwGqqG/?taken-by=ulissesworld
10. TRX Roll-outs
You’ve probably seen the TRX suspension training ropes at your gym. They’re very popular with footballers and pro athletes as they’re a great way of incorporating core stability and strength balance exercises into a workout – as well as training unusual planes of motion you simply cannot do with dumbbells.
Or, you can do what Ulisses does and just find a new way to punish your abs. And if anyone can find a new way, it’s Ulisses.
We’ve already looked at the one arm barbell rollout, but this movement arguably tests your core even more as your body has to maintain core stability by essentially holding onto two ropes.
He also hits some tough-looking pike lifts with his feet strapped into the TRX trainer.
https://instagram.com/p/3RIjKbGql5/?taken-by=ulissesworld
