When it comes to fitness inspiration, there’s one celebrity who stands out from the beautifully sculpted crowd: Jennifer Lopez. Jenny from the block may dance, sing, and act, but she also works really hard in the gym to build a core that deserves her own Instagram account. To find out more, I found a JLo playlist on Spotify, got my core ready, and hit the gym to try out her ab workout.
Lopez’s trainer, Dodd Romero, shared exactly his grueling abs workout in an interview with Oprah’s Diary (opens in a new tab). Romero noted that Lopez loves to get a good workout before going on stage, saying that she trains for about an hour four or five times a week, targeting a different part of the body in each workout. She also eats well, according to another trainer who worked with JLo, she follows a balanced diet of high-quality protein and nutrient-dense foods. Abs are made in the kitchen, after all.
It goes without saying that what works for Lopez, or for me, might not work for you and your body. If you’re completely new to an exercise, it’s a good idea to check your form with a personal trainer before adding weight to the movement to make sure you’re not at risk of injury. Looking for more exercise inspiration? Read what happened when I did 100 dead bugs a day for a week. here.
What is J Lo’s ab workout?
Are you ready to work hard? Lopez’s abdominal workout is as follows:
Series 1:
50 Hanging Ab Raise
50 rope crunches
50 incline crunches with a 45-pound plate
Set 2:
The same exercises, but with 35 repetitions of each one.
Set 3:
Same thing again, but with 21 repetitions.
Romero said Lopez doesn’t take breaks between sets: You heard it here first, the woman is a machine.
Let’s see how to do each of the three exercises with the correct form:
Hanging Leg Raises: To do a hanging leg raise, start by holding on to a bar with an overhand grip, thumbs wrapped around the bar for stability. Engage your core (think sucking your belly button in toward your spine) and lift your legs together until they’re straight in front of you. Pause, then lower your legs back to their starting position.
Rope crunches: To do a rope crunch, you’ll need to attach a rope attachment to a cable machine and stand in front of it. Kneel about a meter away from the machine, with the pulley above head height. Hold the rope with both hands, palms facing in. Bend your body forward at a 45-degree angle to start, then tighten your abs and pull your torso toward the floor. Control yourself on the way up: the movement should be slow and steady.
Incline Crunches with a Plate: Incline sit-ups, as the name suggests, consist of doing sit-ups on an incline. This is usually easier on a weight bench that has a foot bar that you can hook your feet under. Lower the bench to a 30 to 45 degree angle. The greater the angle, the harder your core will have to work during the exercise. Your feet should be at the top end of the bench, your head at the bottom end.
Holding a weight plate across your chest, engage your core and lift your torso off the bench, toward your feet, as you would in a normal squat. (Here it is how to do sit-ups with the correct form, and what happened when I did 30 sit-ups a day for 30 days.).
I Did JLo’s Ab Workout For A Week – Here’s What Happened
According to her trainer, Lopez only works her abs once a week, which is pretty normal for most training routines, but to really test her training, I did it for three days a week. As a runner, having a strong core is much more than an aesthetic goal – a weak core can lead to injury and less running endurance. As I’m currently in the first block of training for the London Marathon this fall, I run around 25 miles a week, with three strength training sessions, so I used JLo’s ab circuit for all three trips to the gym this week. .
The first thing I noticed was that 50 leg lifts is a batch. I managed about ten before realizing I was swinging my hips to lift my legs, rather than engaging my core. For the remaining reps, I switched to the bent-leg version, in which you use your abs and hip flexors to lift your knees up to waist level, rather than keeping your legs straight, to make sure I was working. the correct muscles.
For the next two sets of leg raises, I got off the bar and switched to using the captain’s chair at the gym, which has back and arm pads to help keep you in position while lifting your legs. As I mentioned before in training stories, I suffer from sciatica after a riding accident as a teenager, so I have to be careful not to put too much pressure on my lower back when I exercise.
The rope crunches were also intense, burning my obliques along the side of my torso. The posterior incline crunches were torture. I soon put my ego aside and swapped the 10kg plate I had originally picked up for a 5kg one – incline crunches are very different from crunches on one level.
Unlike JLo, I took a two-minute break between sets to sit on the exercise bench and contemplate my career options. 106 reps later, my core was on fire and I was in awe of JLo’s strength as she dropped me onto an exercise mat to stretch.
When I returned to training two days later, my core was already sore a few minutes into the circuit; There’s a reason Lopez only does this extraordinary workout once a week, and that’s because it’s so intense. The pain didn’t subside throughout the entire workout, and for the final set, I had to ditch the ab weight plate and just use bodyweight. I left it for a few more days before trying the workout again, and once again, I found my core hurt like never before throughout the entire workout.
Did he have Lopez’s abs after a week of testing his training? Sadly not. The human body, as much as we’d like to, doesn’t work like that, and visible abs depend entirely on your body fat percentage, not how many squats or leg raises you do (here’s how to calculate your body). average of fat).
However, I did learn three things, first of all, that Jennifer Lopez works incredibly hard to achieve her incredible physique. Second, she has some good gym songs. Of course, it wasn’t a requirement of the challenge to listen to her songs while she worked out, so why not right? Finally, I really enjoyed the simplicity of the workout – just doing three exercises really forced me to focus on my form during these exercises, instead of getting distracted and rushing to the next one. That said, it’s not one I’ll repeat in a hurry.
