The Wall Street Journal has called the nineties “the decade of the abs.” Crunches rival baseball as the national pastime. AbRollers are selling like hot dogs, yet an average American gut still looks more like an air bag than a six-pack. I’ll fix that. It is universally accepted that the perfect ab exercise does the following: • Maximizes isolation of the abdominal muscles; • Reduces lower back stress by minimizing the involvement of the hip flexors(the pass group); • Fool-proofs itself by the nature of its performance. Before accepting the solution, you must first understand the problem. The abdominals (rectus abdominis) connect your pubic bone to your breastbone. When this muscle contracts, it pulls your pelvis and rib cage together, rounding your back in the process, as in a crunch.

I was chewing on a second Parrillo Bar while going through my accumulated phone messages. I had just returned from giving a seminar at the martial arts “Festival” held in conjunction with the Arnold Schwarzenegger Fitness Weekend. My seminar topic had been a popular one among martial artists: how to do the splits. One message was from Beth, a national-level fitness competitor living in Chicago. She had caught my seminar, and (according to the recording) had her training, nutrition, and posing routine relatively together - Beth wanted to incorporate a full split into her posing routine but could not quite get down into a deep and complete full split. Could the Evil Russian help? Who else could?