Coach Dan Greenbaum

Most people butcher cable ab crunches they hinge at the hips, pull with their arms, and never get true spinal flexion.

This setup fixes all of that.

By using the leg pad as a back brace and choosing this cable set-up, you lock your lower body in place so your spine can actually move. That gives you the freedom to go into full spinal extension → spinal flexion, which is exactly how you bias the upper abs.

Here’s why this version hits different:

The leg pad acts as back brace and being seated helps to stabilize your pelvis so the abs can do the work

Your upper spine can rounds properly, giving you a stronger contraction

You remove momentum and isolate what really matters: controlled flexion

It’s one of the easiest ways to feel TRUE upper-ab activation

If you’ve never tried this setup, you’re leaving definition and strength on the table.

Does this mean I am a Crossfitter now?

I really like this movement on the GHD for abs. It provides from movement of the spin and loads the abs in the stretched position.

First rep the first time doing the exercise is alittle nerve racking, but once you get into the movement is works really well.

If you do not have one of this machines you can do this using a hyperextension bench or also a swiss ball.

The program that worked at 25 does not work at 38.

Not because you got weaker.

Because your hormonal environment changed.

Testosterone is lower. Recovery capacity is reduced. Cortisol sensitivity is higher.

Training to failure repeatedly in that environment does not build muscle.

It destroys recovery and suppresses the hormones that drive adaptation.

The adjustments:

Longer rest between sets. Leave two reps in reserve on every working set. Prioritize movement quality over load progression. Match training intensity to your recovery capacity not your ego.

This is not training less hard.

This is training smarter inside a different biological reality.

If you are a professional man over 35 and your sleep is garbage, the problem is almost never the sleep itself.

It is what your nervous system is still doing at 11pm after a full day of performing at a high level.

Here is how I think about sleep for the men I work with.

Sleep onset. You lie down and your brain keeps running. Replaying the day. Planning tomorrow. That is cortisol still elevated when it should be declining. The fix starts hours before bed not when your head hits the pillow.

Sleep maintenance. You fall asleep fine but wake up at 2 or 3am and cannot get back down. That is almost always a blood sugar crash or a cortisol spike. Both are driven by how you are eating and how stressed your system is during the day.

Sleep quality. You log seven hours and wake up feeling like you slept four. That is a deep sleep architecture problem. Your body is not getting into the stages where testosterone is produced, muscle is repaired, and the brain consolidates memory.

All three of these have a biological driver.

And for professional men the driver is almost always the same.

A nervous system that never fully comes down from the demands of the day.

Better sleep does not start with supplements.

It starts with understanding what your cortisol is doing for the 16 hours before you try to sleep.

DM me SLEEP and I will tell you where I would start with your situation.

You wake up with a flat stomach every morning.

By noon you look three months pregnant.

By dinner you are unbuttoning your pants.

Nothing you ate explains it.

Here is what does.

Your stomach acid is too low to break down what you are eating.

And stress is the reason it dropped in the first place.

Here is how the cascade works.

When you are chronically stressed your body diverts resources away from digestion and toward survival.

Stomach acid production drops.

Food lands in your stomach and instead of being broken down efficiently it sits there and ferments.
Gas builds.

Bloating follows.

And the problem compounds with every meal you eat in a stressed or rushed state.

Low stomach acid also means the pH signal that triggers your pancreatic enzymes further down the digestive tract never fires properly.

So even the food that does move through is not being fully broken down or absorbed.

This is why you can eat clean all day and still feel like your gut is failing you.

The food is not the problem.

The environment you are digesting it in is.

Betaine HCL is one of the tools I use with clients to restore stomach acid to a functional level while we address the underlying cortisol load driving the suppression.

It is not a permanent fix on its own.

But paired with the stress work it is one of the fastest ways to restore normal digestive function and eliminate the daily bloating cycle.

Wake up flat.

Stay flat.

That is the goal.

DM me ABSORPTION and I will tell you how I assess this and where I would start.

I get it!

You’re a busy professional and or parent and you got a lot going on everyday.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t gain muscle and lose fat.

I like using half body splits for myself and my clients who are busy professionals and parents.

That allows us to train all body parts more than 1 time a week. This works really well for making progress!

Here is the plan:

Chest/back/shoulders
Arms/legs

You can train between 2-4 days per week

* 2 exercises per body part
* 2-3 warm up set per movement and 1 top or hard set (you only could do 1-2 reps at the end of this set)
* 6-10 reps per exercise
* Rest 1 - 1:30 for each movement

This formula has been extremely successful for my busy professionals and parents.

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