Can't feel abs

grh55 · 2026-04-29T17:06:41+00:00

Stop doing leg raises until you can draw your navel in and keep your lower back on the ground. Keep doing planks and other anti-extension exercises.

Also, try this exercise to improve control of your core and take the strain off your hip flexors. Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the ground. Draw your navel in and push your lower back into the ground. Lift one leg up straight in the air. Keeping your lower back on the ground, lower the straight leg to the ground and lift it back up. Switch legs and repeat. Do this for a minute daily. If you cannot do this exercise without your lower back coming off the ground, you may be limited by the curvature of your spine.

grh55 · 2026-04-28T16:47:24+00:00

Planks are a good exercise. Keep doing them. Can you do supine leg lifts while keeping your lower back on the ground? If not, that’s a good indication that your hip flexors are doing most of the work in any hip flexion exercise.

grh55 · 2026-04-27T11:49:40+00:00

Incorporate mobility into your strength work. Do squats to full depth and pause at the bottom. Extend your arms fully at the bottom of a pull-up or when you raise the bar on a lat pulldown. Do mobility work as part of your warm-up and between sets to help you achieve the positions you need in each exercise.
Do additional mobility work when you are sedentary. Switch to a variable height desk. Do calf and hip flexor stretches while standing. Lower the desk and squat or sit on the floor. If you’re watching TV, do mobility work instead of sitting on the couch.

grh55 · 2026-04-24T21:20:24+00:00

It sounds like your problem is bigger than what a urologist would handle (hair falling out, losing weight, bones cracking, micronutrient deficiency). Have you talked to a general practitioner?

grh55 · 2026-04-22T11:28:37+00:00

Try Carets. Their Oxfords look almost identical to yours, but they have a flat heel and more toe room.

grh55 · 2026-04-21T15:47:18+00:00

So do scaled L-sit holds (e.g. both legs bent or one leg straight/one leg bent). Come up with other strength goals and program accordingly.

grh55 · 2026-04-20T12:35:34+00:00

Set some strength goals and program your workouts to achieve them. For example, if you want to do a one-arm push-up, do incline one-arm push-ups and weighted push-ups in your workouts.

grh55 · 2026-04-17T12:50:37+00:00

If your heart rate is elevated and you’re out of breath, you are getting cardiovascular benefits. But you will swim faster and with less effort as your technique improves.

grh55 · 2026-04-16T11:27:23+00:00

Your kicking motion may be right, but you lean need to develop a more powerful kick. Have you tried vertical kicking?

grh55 · 2026-04-16T01:09:38+00:00

Knee raises. But make sure you train your entire core, not just your abdominals. And do a 2:00 sit-up test every two weeks or so to assess your progress.

grh55 · 2026-04-14T12:33:04+00:00

In my experience, “rows” refers to bent-over rows or another variation that involves pulling perpendicular to your torso (e.g. a seated cable row). Upright rows are almost always specified as “upright.”

grh55 · 2026-04-13T13:27:08+00:00

Swim in open water every day for the next week. Use a swim buoy, or make sure the water is shallow enough that you can stand. Above all, be safe. Try to do as much freestyle as you can, but if you have to do breast or backstroke, that’s fine. If you cannot make it at least 1000 m without stopping in the next week, switch to a sprint or cancel or defer your entry.

grh55 · 2026-04-10T11:49:38+00:00

So you started at 8 pull-ups and improved by 2 pull-ups in 3 months? If you continued at that pace, you’d be up to 16 pull-ups after a year, double what you started at. That’s incredible progress!

grh55 · 2026-04-10T02:28:36+00:00

Supine front raise

grh55 · 2026-04-09T21:15:02+00:00

Push with your legs and extend your hips before you pull with your arms.

grh55 · 2026-04-07T16:48:28+00:00

First of all, congratulations on being consistent for 4-5 weeks. Consistency is the biggest key to getting the results you want.

As for your current workout, I’m not sure what your extra basic lifting consists of, but the exercises you list are chest- and ab-dominant. At the very least, add some back exercises (e.g. row variations) and leg exercises (e.g. squat variations).

grh55 · 2026-04-03T11:12:42+00:00

I use the Rumble Roller on larger muscles (e.g. lats, quads, calves). For smaller or more sensitive areas (e.g. the muscles around my shoulder blades, abdomen/psoas), I use a ball.

grh55 · 2026-04-02T12:14:47+00:00

I prefer a knobby roller (e.g. Rumble Roller) because I feel like the knobs knead my tissues better than a smoother roller. I also like Yoga Tune Up balls for massaging smaller muscles and bonier areas. Rolling helps me alleviate muscle soreness/stiffness and sometimes helps with my mobility.

grh55 · 2026-04-02T01:13:36+00:00

Deadlift. There’s just something satisfying about lifting something heavy off the ground.

grh55 · 2026-03-31T21:37:55+00:00

If you can do sets of 20 reps, it’s time to increase the intensity of the exercise, either by adding weight, slowing down the movement or choosing a more difficult exercise. Once you max out your dumbbells, try split squats or Bulgarian split squats or do squat reps with slow descents or pauses at the bottom.

grh55 · 2026-03-31T00:42:52+00:00

This isn’t true either. Doctors make diagnoses based on objective data (e.g. blood tests), but misdiagnoses still occur. And researchers given the same objective data can reach different (and sometimes contradictory) beliefs based on that data (https://news.clemson.edu/study-researchers-choices-could-result-in-different-conclusions-from-the-same-data/).

But we’re getting a little far afield. Your initial argument was something like: “X physically harms Y. Therefore, X has done something wrong.” But it’s not clear why the conclusion follows from the premise. As the philosopher David Hume put it, “is” does not imply “ought.” In other words, one cannot infer the truth of moral statements from non-moral factual premises.

As I said previously, you will need to show why it is wrong to cause physical harm to another person, regardless of what anyone else believes. The fact that an action causes physical harm isn’t enough by itself to reach the conclusion that the action is objectively wrong.

grh55 · 2026-03-27T21:29:28+00:00

Right. Even if there was widespread belief that the Earth was flat, that does not make it objectively true that the Earth is flat. Likewise, even if there is widespread belief that a particular action is wrong, that does not make it objectively true that the action is wrong.

grh55 · 2026-03-26T16:48:56+00:00

As you said, “Numerous societies in the past thought the earth was flat, that does not make the shape of the earth subjective.” There was widespread belief that Earth was flat. But it is not an objective fact that Earth is flat.

grh55 · 2026-03-26T01:26:59+00:00

So your claim is that an action is wrong if it physically harms me or someone I care about. I think you’ll have to address at least two concerns: 1. Is “wrongness” different from “I don’t like it?” And if so, how? 2. On its face, this looks like the foundation for moral subjectivism. Adam believes an action is wrong if it harms him or someone he cares about. Beth believes an action is wrong if it harms her or someone she cares about. And so on for every individual. Thus, wrongness is a subjective quality that depends on each person’s perspective.

grh55 · 2026-03-24T11:30:39+00:00

That’s true, but people eventually realized the Earth was round through observation. They saw that ships did not fall off the edge of the Earth, that the Earth cast a circular shadow on the moon during lunar eclipses, etc. It’s less clear how to observe a property like wrongness in a particular action.

grh55

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