It doesn’t matter whether you have a workout planned for the day or not, you are going to want to do what I’m showing you in this video every single morning. This 2 minute and 30 second routine is something that is going to help you improve your posture, abs and even your grip strength. Not to mention, if you stay consistent with this, you will have a way to determine whether or not your workouts are causing your CNS to burnout a bit and that you might need added recovery.
The first thing you need to do in the first 30 seconds of rolling out of bed is drink 20-24 ounces of water. We are chronically dehydrated and we often times forget how important it is to start our day off by rehydrating after being asleep for the last 6 to 8 hours. We often just get up and get on our way without making a concerted effort to replenish the water that we have lost and not taken in while asleep.
This can have a dramatic impact on the energy levels we have throughout the rest of the day, our ability to focus and the amount of strength we can output when we hit the gym for our workout. I do this by keeping two bottles of lukewarm bottled water by my bathroom sink that I ingest quickly after waking up. This portion of the morning routine should take no more than 30 seconds.
Next, I walk towards my closet, but not to start picking out my outfit. Instead, I make a pitstop at the pullup bar that I have hanging over the doorway. Here I take 2 minutes to hang from the bar (each one with a different intention) to complete my morning routine. The first is a one minute decompression hang. The goal here is to try and decompress my spine and do a dead arm hang from the bar.
It helps to keep your feet lightly in contact with the ground so you can drop your pelvis and feel as if the weight of it is stretching out your hips and lower back. Beyond that however, you want to try and address the lack of thoracic extension that we get by being in a slumped posture throughout much of the day and even at night when our heads are propped up on a pillow. Here, you want to reach your head through to improve the extension of your spine and help to correct this with consistent daily efforts.
Of course, the accumulated hang time between this and the second minute we are about to embark on will help to increase the strength of your grip and forearms. Regarding the second minute, now you want to try and engage your abs by lifting your feet off the ground and hollowing out your lower abs. Do not just hang here, instead engage the shoulder blades as well to get better shoulder stability. The goal of this movement is to be able to hold it for one minute as well.
And there you have it. That is a simple routine that you can do every single morning regardless of whether you have a workout planned for that day or not. The amount of work being done here is not enough to cause you to fatigue or negatively impact your workout later on but is going to have an impact when it is done consistently every morning.
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For more videos on how to improve your posture in four steps and the best way to get ripped abs be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24
We need a list of the, "Do this everyday".
I like all your videos very much. I've watched maybe 10, so far. Two things: your continued warnings about the upright barbell row are very very warranted. I saw the exercise in Delavier's "Strength Training Anatomy" and did it as few times as 3 during 3 extended workouts. Sure enough, got the impingement syndrome in my left shoulder and it took several months to recover with physical therapy, and cortisone shots (2). (More on that another time). Second, I particularly like this video about what to do first thing in the morning. The reason is that you do not shout your way through it. You have a good voice, but having lived abroad for a decade, in a place where high-pressure sales techniques are NOT the norm, I have an especially hard time with it now that I live back in the States. In fact, I was going to write a comment in another of your Youtube videos telling you this because having seen several of them, I was impressed with the real-life useful information you are providing, but at the same time, I was getting tired of listening to your raised voice throughout most of the vids I'd seen. Hope you don't take offence. This approach to sales is a way to hype the product that is taken for granted here in America. I simply do not like it.
I’m not opposed to the idea of drinking water in the morning, but I am curious where the idea that you wake up dehydrated in the morning comes from. Slow wave sleep leads to increased antidiuretic hormone (ADH) secretion, which causes the kidneys to hang on to more free water. The end result is that most people don’t wake up in the middle of the night to urinate under normal circumstances. I would not think there is enough water loss there to cause dehydration. There’s some small losses from water vapor in exhaled breath, or from sweat, but nothing significant.
So if I go to bed appropriately hydrated, how would I wake up dehydrated?
To be clear, I like Jeff and his videos. He’s not the first person I’ve heard say that, so I’m wondering where it comes from.
I would like to see a video on what you should do throughout the day if you have a desk job. It’s not what I want, but it’s what I’ve got and I know sitting all day is making my body feel terrible even though I workout at lunch. ( I do eat lunch, just while I work so I can workout during my break). Let me know if there is already a video out there that I missed. If there isn’t, please make one. I am starting the AX-1 routine today and I want to get my whole days right. Thanks. Sorry for the long comment.
That back side of the pull-up bar where you hung to activate the abs, if you do pull-ups on that side would that a different type of pull-up or is it basically the neutral grip pull-up
This is so funny
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caoklT8B57k
Thank you for your exellent advice.