Episode 258: The Top 20(ish) Ab Exercises Ranked S to F Tier

0:00:11.7 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.

0:00:12.4 Jordan Syatt: What’s up, Michael?

0:00:13.2 Mike Vacanti: I’m in an undisclosed location.

[laughter]

0:00:20.7 Jordan Syatt: An undisclosed, very cold location.

0:00:25.3 Mike Vacanti: Freezing. It’s northern Canada.

[laughter]

0:00:30.6 Jordan Syatt: Not telling you, not telling you where I am. It’s Canada.

0:00:34.2 Mike Vacanti: Yes, yes.

[laughter]

0:00:37.2 Jordan Syatt: Not gonna say who it is. I’m not gonna say. Not gonna say…

0:00:39.9 Mike Vacanti: What kind of doctor it was.

[laughter]

0:00:45.8 Jordan Syatt: Incredible. It’s one of the greatest interviews of all time.

0:00:48.1 Mike Vacanti: Hilarious. No, I’m down in Florida. We’re getting a podcast in. All of my family didn’t fit in one location, so a couple of my sisters and their boyfriends got an Airbnb, so they’re gracious enough to let me use it. And we are getting this episode in where we are talking about one of two things depending on. Jordan, do you have a coin with you by chance?

0:01:12.5 Jordan Syatt: I don’t have a coin.

0:01:13.8 Mike Vacanti: I do.

0:01:14.4 Jordan Syatt: I thought you were gonna make a Jewish joke.

[laughter]

0:01:19.3 Mike Vacanti: That’s not on my radar. What would the Jewish joke on coins be? Like a money thing?

0:01:23.4 Jordan Syatt: Who knows? You’re the comedian. I thought you were gonna…

0:01:26.4 Mike Vacanti: Don’t tell lies, Jordan.

[laughter]

0:01:31.9 Mike Vacanti: You’re actually the comedian. You’ve done stand-up comedy. You are the comedian. But what would it be? Like, where was your head going?

0:01:43.7 Jordan Syatt: It could have been as simple as like, hey, you got a coin. I know you’ve got a coin. So, or it could…

0:01:50.2 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

[laughter]

0:01:51.0 Mike Vacanti: Like a because you’re rich joke?

0:01:52.6 Jordan Syatt: No, because I’m Jewish. Jews… It’s the Jewish… The Jewish joke is that Jews have money.

0:01:59.3 Mike Vacanti: Got it.

0:01:59.7 Jordan Syatt: And then… Now, it’s not funny anymore because I have to explain the fucking joke. Now you’re ruining it.

0:02:04.0 Mike Vacanti: Here’s what I was getting at. I wanted to know what the stereotype you were going after with the joke was because I wasn’t entirely sure, but it’s that Jews are rich was the stereotype.

0:02:13.8 Jordan Syatt: No, it’s not even that Jews are rich. I don’t even think that’s the joke. I think the stereotype is that Jews just only care about money and like, that’s… Now it’s just not even funny anymore. Just ruined the whole thing.

0:02:26.5 Mike Vacanti: Sorry, I ruined it. I completely ruined it. But good news, I found the coin.

0:02:29.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh, good. All right. Coin flip.

0:02:31.9 Mike Vacanti: Heads is… Heads is one body part and tails is another body part. Which one do you want to… You call it.

0:02:42.1 Jordan Syatt: Well, heads is… Oh, oh, oh, oh. Heads.

0:02:47.0 Mike Vacanti: All right, so heads is starts with an A and tails starts with an S.

0:02:53.0 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:02:53.8 Mike Vacanti: I’m gonna do the reveal on camera. I don’t want anyone thinking there’s any funny business going on here.

0:02:57.8 Jordan Syatt: A is abs and S is…

0:03:00.0 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know if we can see this.

0:03:02.8 Jordan Syatt: I can’t see it. I’ll just believe you.

0:03:05.9 Mike Vacanti: It’s heads.

0:03:08.2 Jordan Syatt: It’s heads. Okay, so abs.

0:03:10.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, we’re reviewing the top 20 abdominal exercises S tier to F tier. You might have seen content like this.

0:03:17.3 Jordan Syatt: What’s S?

0:03:17.9 Mike Vacanti: Shoulders. We’ll get to shoulders.

0:03:19.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh, nice. Okay.

0:03:21.9 Mike Vacanti: In short-form content, right? They kind of rifle through this list. We’re doing a comprehensive deep dive podcast form, like we have the past few episodes where we interject stories and fun and humor.

0:03:35.3 Jordan Syatt: I love it.

0:03:36.0 Mike Vacanti: We don’t have to dive right in, though. What’s going on?

0:03:38.7 Jordan Syatt: Someone just left a really obnoxious comment on one of my videos that just… I just want to make a video replying to that comment but…

0:03:48.0 Mike Vacanti: Do you want to make that? Do you want to make that right now, live, and we can see your creative process?

[laughter]

0:03:52.4 Jordan Syatt: No. No. Not at all. Dude, I’m not sick. I’m like 85% better, which is good.

0:04:01.5 Mike Vacanti: Let’s go.

0:04:02.0 Jordan Syatt: Feeling…

0:04:02.8 Mike Vacanti: That’s huge.

0:04:03.0 Jordan Syatt: Feeling way better. It’s amazing to be able to talk without coughing. That’s just a blessing. Oh my goodness. Dude, everything’s going well, you know?

0:04:12.4 Mike Vacanti: Nice. I’m happy to hear it.

0:04:14.3 Jordan Syatt: You seem very relaxed in Northern Canada.

0:04:16.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, you can tell by the decor in here with all of the coral and seashells that it’s way up there.

0:04:24.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s very Florida.

0:04:26.6 Mike Vacanti: I meant very Canada, but okay.

0:04:28.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh, oh, got it.

[chuckle]

0:04:31.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah, man. Things are good down here. I actually played a round of golf yesterday.

0:04:36.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, nice.

0:04:36.8 Mike Vacanti: First round of the year.

0:04:39.4 Jordan Syatt: How do you feel? You sore at all?

0:04:41.4 Mike Vacanti: Funny enough, my left glute was a little bit sore this morning. But also I am just remembering I trained legs yesterday before my golf round, so that could be it too. I played probably the best round I’ll play all year, unfortunately.

0:04:58.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh, wow.

0:04:59.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:04:59.8 Jordan Syatt: You really do better with like no playing and then just you go out that first round with no practice and you just crush it.

0:05:06.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, that is… And I forgot my golf shoes back home, so I was wearing random sneakers. Like it shouldn’t have been a good round. I started out par, double, bogey, double. Maybe another double after that and ended up shooting a 45 on the front and a 39 on the back.

0:05:26.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, wow. Damn, dude, let’s go. You do it with your dad?

0:05:29.4 Mike Vacanti: My dad and yeah, brother-in-law and yeah, little family, brother-in-laws.

0:05:33.8 Jordan Syatt: Are your brother-in-laws, are they good?

0:05:35.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, they are. Both of them are good actually.

0:05:37.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh, wow. Okay. Nice.

0:05:39.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:05:40.1 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I did a podcast yesterday that you would have loved listening to this. The story is, I was sent this video of this young dude who’s shredded, like, absolutely shredded to bits, and he’s making content about how to stay full when you’re deep in a cut and you’re super hungry. He has this gargantuan cucumber, like, massive cucumber. He’s like, yeah, you take cinnamon and some protein powder, and you mix them together, and then you dip them… You dip the cucumber into it, and it tastes like a wet churro and…

0:06:25.5 Mike Vacanti: Hang on. Cinnamon and protein powder and water?

0:06:30.3 Jordan Syatt: No, you just take the cinnamon and protein powder and then you mix that together. It makes a little…

0:06:35.9 Mike Vacanti: You get this dry powder mix…

0:06:37.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:06:38.0 Mike Vacanti: Of straight protein.

0:06:38.6 Jordan Syatt: Then you cut the cucumber. You cut the cucumber. Then you take the wet cucumber and you dip it into this powder, and then it makes this, it coats the cucumber in that powder.

0:06:49.9 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:06:50.4 Jordan Syatt: Then you. He’s like, yeah. He’s like, it’s delicious, and it convinces you that you’re full. I’m like, man, this guy’s deep in a cut right now. He’s so hungry. Like this is… I made content about it. I was like, I don’t want anyone talking shit about this kid. It’s not bad. I just want to discuss what’s going on and also understand, when you get this shredded, assuming, number one, you’re not on pharmaceuticals and all this stuff, you’re going to be insanely hungry. If you want to get this shredded, it’s important to know this is what you can expect. Then you have to ask yourself, is it worth it for you to be this shredded? I just made content around that. He ended up commenting on it, and he was very nice. We got on a podcast. He came on my podcast yesterday. I was like, let’s talk.

0:07:39.6 Jordan Syatt: And he’s 22 and just grinding.

0:07:40.2 Mike Vacanti: How did the podcast… Were you guys DMing a little bit after? How did the podcast thing come about?

0:07:45.0 Jordan Syatt: So he commented. And then he was like, oh, man, that’s me. He was very kind because I was very. I was not trashing this kid at all. In fact, I appreciate his honesty, the fact that he’s not pretending that he’s just able to eat tons of calories and that he’s not hungry at all. And so it was a nice video. And he replied very kindly. And then in my first reply to him, I said, “Hey, man, if you ever want to come on the podcast and talk, I’d love to have you on.” And he DM’d me. He was like, “Let’s do it.” And so he got on the podcast.

0:08:15.2 Mike Vacanti: Nice.

0:08:16.7 Jordan Syatt: He reminded me a lot of us when we were younger. Like a lot.

0:08:23.2 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:08:23.8 Jordan Syatt: It was a two-hour conversation.

0:08:25.8 Mike Vacanti: Oh, nice.

0:08:26.3 Jordan Syatt: And the first 45 minutes were about his, because he was prepping for a bodybuilding show, a natural bodybuilding show. He did it with his dad. He’s 22. His dad’s 52. They did it together. It was really cool.

0:08:38.9 Mike Vacanti: That’s awesome.

0:08:39.8 Jordan Syatt: Like really, really awesome. And we spoke about eating disorders and the difficult… He gained 30 pounds in four weeks after the show.

0:08:49.8 Mike Vacanti: Wow.

0:08:51.1 Jordan Syatt: 30. He said he gained 30 within a couple of days. Initially, it was water, but then the fat started to come back. But then I was like, “Hey, if you have any questions that I can help with, let me know.” We got into more business stuff. And so he starts telling me, he’s like, “Man, all my friends are out drinking and partying and doing drugs.” He’s like, “I just think they’re losers.” He’s like, “It’s very lonely. I’m at home all the time. I’m just working, making videos.” Basically he’s like, “Did you ever go through this?” I spent a long time…

0:09:32.0 Mike Vacanti: You’re like did I ever?

0:09:32.9 Jordan Syatt: Talking to him. Yeah. It was actually really interesting and it was funny. I told him how you and I… I spoke about you and I was like, we really operated from a place of anger. And he was like, interesting. He’s like, I don’t have anger. He’s like, “I don’t have anger. I just think I’m better than everyone.”

[laughter]

0:09:51.8 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

[laughter]

0:09:53.5 Mike Vacanti: Lot of confidence.

0:09:56.1 Jordan Syatt: Dude, so much confidence. He said, he’s like, anyone who knows me in person knows that I’m overly confident. He’s like, I need my ego to be crushed. I know it’s going to happen one day. Even posting on social media has started to chip away at my ego a little bit. I’m crushed by… But he’s like, I just think I’m better than everybody.

0:10:15.5 Mike Vacanti: It’s a very honest thing to say.

0:10:17.7 Jordan Syatt: Dude, so… I kept telling him, I was like, I love how honest you’re being. But it was just… It reminded me a lot of the being alone, working really hard, not doing what everyone else is doing. He’s just like I eat only clean foods. He’s like, I don’t eat anything bad. He’s like, I eat… He’s like, I look at my friends who eat Uncrustables and I pity them.

[laughter]

0:10:51.5 Jordan Syatt: I pity them. He literally… This is his words. He goes, I pity them. I pity them that like they need to eat these foods. So unbelievably honest. But also, I was just like, man, I see a lot, not everything, but there’s a lot of similarities, especially the just grinding, working on your own. So I encouraged him. I was like, go hard.

0:11:11.6 Mike Vacanti: What was he eating post bodybuilding show that led to those 30 pounds of weight gain?

0:11:16.4 Jordan Syatt: Bro, he said he literally just ate like, he said that….

0:11:21.0 Mike Vacanti: No way.

0:11:21.8 Jordan Syatt: He literally… That’s what he said. I believe him. So he has Tourette’s. He has Tourette’s. And it was crazy. So after I posted the video, I got a lot of messages from people because he’s building up an audience. And I got a lot of messages from people who followed him and they were like, thank you so much for not trashing him because he really is a really nice guy. I got a message from a woman who’s like, my daughter went to school with him when he was a young kid, and he used to come over our house. And he would from a young kid, he would only, she’s like, he would never eat cake at birthdays. He would never eat… He was only eating like, he would ask for vegetables and fruit at birthday parties.

0:11:58.0 Mike Vacanti: Wow.

0:11:58.4 Jordan Syatt: And he said that he literally, because he just would eat until a point of overwhelming fullness, especially after the bodybuilding show. And he said that he literally tore a muscle in his stomach because his, he was eating so much…

0:12:16.0 Mike Vacanti: Like stretched it so much?

0:12:16.5 Jordan Syatt: To the point that his stomach was getting… Yeah, it stretched so much.

0:12:19.3 Mike Vacanti: Wow.

0:12:19.8 Jordan Syatt: And…

0:12:20.4 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that before.

0:12:22.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I think it’s more common in pregnant women when their stomachs are stretching. And he’s like, I had that. He’s like, where I literally tore my stomach because he was still working out. So he’d eat to the point where like he could barely move. Then he’d go squat heavy. And all that pressure on his stomach ripped it open.

0:12:41.5 Mike Vacanti: Wow. There’s surgery for that or no?

0:12:43.6 Jordan Syatt: I think sometimes, sometimes… But I don’t think he’s looking into that right now.

0:12:48.3 Mike Vacanti: He he tore an ab muscle probably, right?

0:12:50.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I think so.

0:12:51.3 Mike Vacanti: Like he didn’t tear his stomach organ.

0:12:52.8 Jordan Syatt: No, no, no. I think he tore an ab muscle. Yeah.

0:12:54.5 Mike Vacanti: Okay. Yeah. Man!

0:12:55.7 Jordan Syatt: But…

0:12:55.8 Mike Vacanti: Man, sounds like a great podcast.

0:12:56.9 Jordan Syatt: I believe… He was like, I just, I only… He was like, I was eating huge quantities of like sweet potatoes and just like, not necessarily like broccoli, but like huge quantities of potatoes and eggs. And I was like, what’s your favorite food? He’s like, eggs. Like my favorite food is eggs. So I do believe him and he was just like, yeah. And he was a wrestler as well. And so he said that he can eat huge quantities of food, and he just like never feels full. I was like, okay, there’s something going on there. But yeah, it just reminded me a lot of that younger, grinding, alone, not doing what everyone else is doing. And he just needed to hear that like that’s common when you’re trying to build a business.

0:13:42.7 Mike Vacanti: Very. And it’s not the only path to building a successful business, obviously, but it is one path, and one path that works well because you have all of the time, right? Your schedule’s entirely your own. You have the fuel, whether it’s coming from supreme confidence or ambition or anger, whatever the emotions are, if they’re negative emotions, you’re converting into something else, like you and I did. And it can feel lonely, but it can also be reassuring to hear that other people have been or are in that position where, all right, I’m not like a complete weirdo for not wanting to do what like the societal norms are, but instead want to focus on this thing that I’m drawn to, which is, for him bodybuilding and I assume growing a fitness business. He’s making content.

0:14:41.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah.

0:14:42.2 Mike Vacanti: He’s sweet. What’s his name?

0:14:43.8 Jordan Syatt: I think this is his real name, Solid Heaston.

0:14:46.7 Mike Vacanti: All right, Solid.

0:14:48.1 Jordan Syatt: He introduced himself as Solid. Yeah, that’s his name, Solid.

0:14:51.4 Mike Vacanti: Let’s go. Shout out Solid. Good for you, man. And 22.

0:14:55.0 Jordan Syatt: He said his dad started it.

0:14:56.3 Mike Vacanti: So young.

0:14:56.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I told him. I was like, I started making content at 21. Like, you’re right around the same age. And I was asking about his relationship with food and he’s like, no, I’ve always just eaten this way. He’s like, but my dad started to have some funky stuff after the bodybuilding show. He’s like, my dad is still…

0:15:14.7 Mike Vacanti: I wonder how lean his dad got.

0:15:16.3 Jordan Syatt: Very lean. Like, now he’s doing like… He did a video the other day where he was like, I’m hitting my dad with liver shots until he drops. And like he got boxing gloves on and his dad was shirtless and just like progressively went harder and harder and harder. And his dad is jacked. Like it was, yeah, it was impressive.

0:15:36.1 Mike Vacanti: Good for them. Some good father-son bonding. Yeah, that’s a good way to go about like using someone else’s content or story to make your own content instead of doing it the way most people do it, which is just crap on them.

0:15:52.0 Jordan Syatt: Bash them.

0:15:52.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah.

0:15:53.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:15:54.1 Mike Vacanti: To do it in a way that ends in a fun two-hour podcast is great.

0:15:58.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, it was awesome. Great connection. And I think most people, if not realistically all people, have good intent. And so assuming they have good intent and addressing what they said rather than tearing down the person is typically a better strategy.

0:16:17.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, of course. All right, S-tier to F-tier. We’ll see how many we end up with here. At least 20 abdominal exercises chosen by artificial intelligence. We are starting with, and by the way, this is a combination of nostalgia, mine and Jordan’s personal preference, anecdotes based on actually coaching people in person, which I think is underlooked in these types of rankings. Obviously, the science and evidence that goes behind these exercises for strength gain, for muscle growth, for all kinds of benefits, physiological and otherwise. Jordan, are you ready for exercise number one?

0:17:02.7 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I’m ready.

0:17:03.8 Mike Vacanti: Bicycle crunch.

0:17:05.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, man.

0:17:06.7 Mike Vacanti: You weren’t expecting this to be number one.

0:17:07.5 Jordan Syatt: I wasn’t expecting that to be the first one. No.

0:17:08.4 Mike Vacanti: I also didn’t… I didn’t edit this. So we’ll go semi-fast and we can add things at the end of this list if we want to.

0:17:17.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Man, bicycle crunch, I really do like the bicycle crunch. I’m a big fan of it. I think it’s a very good exercise. I think the major drawback of it is that it’s very difficult to overload. I would say I’m going to give it a B-tier, and I do program it pretty frequently. I’m putting it at a B.

0:17:41.1 Mike Vacanti: I’ll agree with that ranking. That is the main downside. It is a better exercise for someone whose abs aren’t as strong than someone who’s unbelievably advanced. Because someone who’s really advanced, you’re either going to A, need to do an insane number of reps on the exercise, or B, pre-fatigue the abs in some way so that you’re making the bicycle crunch effective, which you can do. If you do a set of 10 heavy cable crunches, followed immediately with no rest by a set of bodyweight bicycle crunches to failure or near failure, that’s pretty brutal right there. So it can work for everyone. I also program it a decent amount. I think B is a good place for it.

0:18:28.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, agreed. And I think especially if you do it slowly and methodically, it’s definitely a, rather than just like the flailing around as like going super fast. When you really slow it down, full range, I like it a lot.

0:18:39.5 Mike Vacanti: You don’t like that the half rep, no full extension, go as fast as you can and just… That’s not your favorite?

[laughter]

0:18:46.1 Jordan Syatt: Like I did it in high school. That’s how I did it in high school.

0:18:49.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s how you… Same with like a Russian twist. You’re just slamming it, which we’ll get to some of these. I’m going to break these two up. So captain’s chair/hanging knee raise. So we’ll call it the captain’s chair leg raise/knee raise.

0:19:06.5 Jordan Syatt: So that’s where your forearms are supported.

0:19:08.9 Mike Vacanti: Yep.

0:19:09.3 Jordan Syatt: And you lift your knees up.

0:19:11.8 Mike Vacanti: Correct.

0:19:14.8 Jordan Syatt: I’m giving that an A. Like that’s a really, really great exercise. It’s nice because you don’t have to worry about your grip strength. You can just sort of allow your forearms to rest on it. I actually and I’m sure we’ll get to it later. I prefer the hanging where your elbows are in the straps as opposed to your arms being down by your side. I just feel like hanging puts your torso in a better position for a a better range of motion. But I’m giving it an A because you can overload it. It’s very progressable. You could just start with isometric holds and then work your way up to actual knee raises and then load it heavier. It’s a great flexion-based movement. I think that’s an A-tier exercise.

0:20:03.5 Mike Vacanti: Isometric holds, meaning you get in position and then you raise your knees up to the top of the rep and hold them for 10 seconds, 15 seconds, whatever it is.

0:20:10.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:20:11.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah.

0:20:13.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

0:20:15.3 Mike Vacanti: I like it. And I’ll comment on that, but first one here, where are you putting hanging knee raises? And we’ll assume that we’re using the straps with the carabiners.

0:20:24.4 Jordan Syatt: That’s S tier.

0:20:26.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:20:26.7 Jordan Syatt: That’s an S tier. Hanging leg raises, whether it’s bent knee, straight leg. And I would also put the one just hanging by your hands under S tier, but your grip strength is a major limiting factor there. But any hanging leg raise is S tier, amazing, amazing exercise. Like it’s just massive range of motion, super, like incredible control of the body, overload, like it’s just, I think that’s one of the greatest ab exercises of all time.

0:20:54.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I’m fully with you. And I don’t know of and I’ll go A tier, S tier as well there. I was going to say anecdotally, it feels like the hanging knee raise compared to the captain’s chair knee raise, that you’re getting a bigger stretch at the bottom of each rep. I don’t know if you actually…

0:21:13.8 Jordan Syatt: Yes. Yes.

0:21:15.2 Mike Vacanti: And maybe there’s something because I’m thinking of stretch both in terms of like how far down your legs are going. There’s like the stretch of, if you think about your legs going through the range of motion, as they go down and back, there’s that stretch. But then there’s like a “stretch component” to the fact that you’re hanging is getting you a little bit of decompression, which almost feels like it’s giving you a bigger ab stretch. So based on feel alone, I’m going to say that the hanging knee raise, hanging leg raise gives you more stretch. Yeah, that’s an S tier. That might be my favorite ab move, honestly.

0:21:57.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, agreed. I completely agree though I think with the captain’s chair, it’s easier to have your torso leaning forward. If you really focus on it, you could get more upright, which would then put you in that better position to get a bigger stretch. But when your your elbows are down, it’s easier to lean forward, which means you’re not getting as big of a stretch at the bottom. Whereas when you’re hanging down from the bar, you are forced to be upright, you can’t lean your torso forward more, so you do get a bigger stretch at the bottom. Like you can do the captain’s chair that way as well. I think it’s more difficult and you have to be much more aware of your body position.

0:22:34.2 Mike Vacanti: Okay, that makes sense. There’s also the residual benefit, like I mentioned, that you’re getting a little bit of decompression compared to if you’re thinking about the body parts that you’re not actually targeting on the move. If I’m in the captain’s chair and I’m going close to failure, I’m in the chair for a solid amount of time and my upper traps and shoulders are fatiguing, which isn’t bad, but my upper traps are tight enough. I’m carrying enough stress in life that the like little bit of quote dead hang that I’m getting from the hanging knee raise compared to the captain’s chair where I’m getting like a little bit of extra upper trap tightness. I’m going to take the hanging over the former.

0:23:06.6 Jordan Syatt: Agreed.

0:23:07.1 Mike Vacanti: Plank.

0:23:08.4 Jordan Syatt: Is this like all planks? Like like single leg plank, like does this encapsulate every plank?

0:23:16.4 Mike Vacanti: We’re going to go rapid fire and we’re going to do each plank. So we’re starting with a bodyweight plank.

0:23:21.6 Jordan Syatt: Okay, so let me give you my thoughts and I won’t do this for every plank variation, but just for planks in general, highly debated in the fitness industry. Some people say they’re worthless, some people say they’re amazing. I lean towards amazing.

0:23:50.9 Mike Vacanti: Sorry to interrupt. Can you give us the argument for worthless?

0:23:53.5 Jordan Syatt: Most people who say they’re worthless will say things to the effect of it’s very difficult to overload. That’s not how your abs actually function in everyday life, which I disagree with. But often, often they don’t like it’s just isometric and that it’s more difficult to overload. But if you’re having difficult overloading it, then you’re not understanding basic leverages. A simple way to overload is just increase the lever arm and it becomes dramatically more difficult. And then you can do different variations, single leg reaching, whatever. So I’m going to give it an S tier. I program them all the time, and especially for beginners and lower intermediates, it’s just it’s very difficult to find an ab exercise better than that early on that really teaches people how to brace, how to control their lumbar and pelvis together, how to find that good neutral position, and it does build tremendous strength. I’m giving it an S tier, which I know will be controversial, but I program them almost every single month. I would say probably 10 out of 12 months, there’s a plank variation of some sort.

0:25:10.2 Mike Vacanti: There’s so many variations.

0:25:11.4 Jordan Syatt: It’s very. Yeah, there are so many variations and it’s relatively easy to learn and it has so much carryover to literally everything else. It’s just, it’s one of those basic beginner exercises that can be made significantly more advanced and has tremendous carryover. It’s just an S tier for me.

0:25:28.0 Mike Vacanti: Let’s go. I’m debating between A tier and S tier for all of the planks, I guess we’ll call them. I’m also a big fan. I feel like some variation of a plank ends up in most of my clients programs most months, as well as my own programs that I’m programming for myself. I’m trying to think about why my gut doesn’t want to put it in S tier. There’s something about the burn and sensation that you can get from flexion-based abdominal exercises compared to isometric abdominal exercises. And I think that’s biasing me away from the isometrics, away from putting it in S tier, even though I think they’re both absolutely necessary and I think they both should be included in most training programs. So…

0:26:39.2 Jordan Syatt: Mm-hmm.

0:26:39.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, logic wins. I’m going S tier with the planks. I love a single arm plank reach. I love…

0:26:40.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.

0:26:42.2 Mike Vacanti: Single leg planks. The long lever plank like you described, getting your arms out in front of you is a great way. I mean, increasing the time under tension, like doing 60 seconds of getting your elbows out in front of you as far as you can and actually having your your hips in a proper position, and then if you want to, you can put a quarter, you can put a 25 -pound weight on your low back and you can continue to load it like that. There’s a lot you can do. I like single leg plank. There’s side plank variation, side plank raises, there’s so many things to do with them.

0:27:17.6 Jordan Syatt: I love body saws, where like you put your feet on sliders.

0:27:21.2 Mike Vacanti: Oh yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

0:27:23.0 Jordan Syatt: That’s just like…

0:27:23.7 Mike Vacanti: Mm-hmm.

0:27:24.8 Jordan Syatt: So good. So good.

0:27:25.8 Mike Vacanti: Can’t believe I forgot that. That is definitely an S tier exercise.

0:27:30.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s like arguably the greatest of all time. It’s a great progression leading into something like an ab wheel rollout, which is just a dynamic plank. I mean, it’s funny, a lot of the people who hate on planks love ab wheel rollouts. I’m like, it’s the same fucking thing. It’s just a more advanced variation.

0:27:46.3 Mike Vacanti: Body saw plank is also for people who do at home workouts, you know, we often talk about it being easier to make a training program more effective or more difficult in a gym with equipment. Having your socks on and having hardwood floor and being at home… The body saw plank is really a more advanced variation that can get a nice stimulus for someone who’s just doing at home workouts.

0:28:12.9 Jordan Syatt: Completely agree. Completely and I don’t know anyone who body saws are easy for.

0:28:18.9 Mike Vacanti: No.

0:28:19.4 Jordan Syatt: Anybody. Like out of out of the strongest people I’ve ever worked with. Like it is very difficult, no matter what.

0:28:27.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I mean, you can bring the reps up and you can increase the range of motion and not letting your hips sag like as you go through each rep and you get that big stretch.

0:28:29.8 Jordan Syatt: Mm-hmm.

0:28:30.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. If you’re doing them right, they’re very difficult. Ab wheel rollout next.

0:28:33.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh, S tier.

0:28:35.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it’s a great exercise.

0:28:36.1 Jordan Syatt: Ab wheel rollout S tier doesn’t even need an explanation. It’s just like it’s very difficult. Very few people can do it properly. And yeah, S tier. Amazing exercise.

0:28:59.4 Mike Vacanti: I’m with you. Reverse crunch.

0:29:01.8 Jordan Syatt: S tier.

0:29:02.6 Mike Vacanti: Wow.

0:29:03.4 Jordan Syatt: S tier. Reverse crunch. I love the reverse crunch. It’s so great because most crunch variations, you’re really getting more upper ab and in the same way we like that stretch on the lower abs and the hanging leg raise, the reverse crunch gets a huge stretch and I think even potentially a bigger range of motion under load for the lower abs with the reverse crunch. I absolutely love the reverse crunch. It’s S tier.

0:29:36.4 Mike Vacanti: What’s your favorite way to set it up? And are there populations you find who struggle more with this exercise than others?

0:29:46.4 Jordan Syatt: I mean generally, it’s the more beginner population. It’s I think learning how to use your abs as opposed to your arms, is the most challenging part of it, which is why in beginner populations, they’ll just do it flat on the ground. And I like to have them hold onto a kettlebell behind them, not something that’s anchored into the ground and progressively getting to a lighter and lighter kettlebell so that like if the kettlebell starts lifting up off the ground, they know they’re using their arms and hands too much. As someone gets more advanced and they know not to use their arms as much, I do want to increase the range of motion. So I really like putting some pads underneath their lower back so that on the way down, they get a bigger stretch in that the lower abs.

0:30:35.4 Mike Vacanti: Ah, okay.

0:30:35.6 Jordan Syatt: And then even from there, for the most advanced, doing it actually on a glute ham raise, where you are backwards on the glute ham raise and your hands are holding onto the foot plate and you just get a massive stretch on the way down, you get a huge lumbar hyperextension. And you can start off with your knees bent and then progressively go toward straighter and straighter and straighter. But again, very progressive. You can do whatever you need to do based on where they’re at. But beginners starting off flat on the ground and then progressively increasing the range.

0:31:09.5 Mike Vacanti: I like it. And yeah, great. I mean, beginners maybe not even doing, depending on where the beginner is, maybe not even doing this exercise until they’re at a certain level of strength and proficiency.

0:31:20.7 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Correct.

0:31:23.1 Mike Vacanti: And then starting on the ground and then increasing the range and the stretch they’re getting at the bottom of each rep all the way up to a glute ham raise.

0:31:29.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:31:30.8 Mike Vacanti: I like it.

0:31:31.4 Jordan Syatt: Beginners, I would probably start them off with more of a hollow body hold or a dead bug variation. Just to get them, I’m assuming that’s later on in the list.

0:31:41.0 Mike Vacanti: The order we got these in is kind of interesting, but, yeah.

0:31:44.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, but a hollow body hold is a great and also great exercise, but I would say it’s not as good, but it is a great progression to getting to the reverse crunch.

0:31:53.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Dead bug.

0:31:55.9 Jordan Syatt: Dead bug, I’m going to give it, I’m going to give it a B tier. It is a very good teaching tool and it does really lack. You can overload it. There are ways to overload it. I’ve found that oftentimes the coordination of it can take away from the time spent training abs. Sometimes it’s just difficult with the opposite arm, opposite leg, whatever. But I’m going to give it a B tier because it’s very good and it can be a really good teaching tool to build up the strength for more advanced exercises later.

0:32:31.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, and this is one where it’s probably like the ranking is different depending on how advanced the person doing it is. Like if you’re unbelievably advanced and dead bug is programmed as like your main ab exercise for the day, you’re not getting a ton out of it. Whereas someone who’s brand new, it can be their… So like, it’s not an activation for them. It’s not…

0:32:58.6 Jordan Syatt: Right, right.

0:32:59.8 Mike Vacanti: It’s not a teaching tool. It’s like this. Well, it is a teaching tool, but it’s also difficult. Right. Like, you can have someone who doesn’t have very strong abs not be able to do a ton of reps of like good, clean, solid reps of dead bugs and take it close to failure and really get stronger abs through this exercise. But pretty quickly they’re going to move on to more difficult variations, more difficult exercises.

0:33:25.2 Jordan Syatt: What’s your ranking?

0:33:26.3 Mike Vacanti: I’m going, I’m going A for a brand new beginner and I’m going C for someone who’s more advanced.

0:33:33.7 Jordan Syatt: That’s smart. That’s a better way to rank it. Yeah.

0:33:35.5 Mike Vacanti: It’s just giving David more work. I don’t know if it’s a better way to rank it. It’s just cluttering our already massively cluttered pyramid here. Or it’s actually not a pyramid the way that we’re throwing out S tier rankings. It’s more like an upside down pyramid. Mountain climbers.

0:33:54.4 Jordan Syatt: I’m going to talk about mountain climbers the way that most people do them, not in the way that if you’re going to do them, F tier. I hate, I hate them. And again, there are ways to do them well. There are ways to do them in which would be essentially a dynamic plank. But the way that most people do a mountain climber, where they’re just hunched over and just, just like going, it’s just, it’s F tier. Terrible. I think wrist and shoulders end up getting in the way. It’s just, again, there are ways to do it well, but the way 98% of people do it, F tier. So many better options.

0:34:35.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. The way to do it well involves so much strength that most people who are doing them sloppy can’t do them well even if they wanted to.

0:34:46.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah.

0:34:46.8 Mike Vacanti: Like to slow the tempo down, to maintain a neutral lumbar, to like really be using the abs and not the hip flexors. To not end up with your butt too high in the air and with low back rounding. Yeah. So we have S, A, B, C, D, E, F. I have the advantage of seeing this list and seeing what all is on here. Is there much worse than bad, ugly mountain climbers on this list? No, no. No, there’s certainly not. Mountain climbers in a commercial gym are F tier. They’re an F tier exercise, Jordan. Hollow hold/hollow body.

0:35:33.2 Jordan Syatt: I love this exercise. If I was going to rank it after seeing you do like the A for one, C for another.

0:35:40.8 Mike Vacanti: The dead bugs.

0:35:41.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Same sort of thing here. I think they’re an amazing exercise. They actually have a lot of carryover to chin-ups and pull-ups. Getting people to learn how to hold their body properly if they’re swinging all around in the bottom of a chin-up or a pull-up. I’m going to give it. I’m going to do the exact same thing. For someone who’s closer to a beginner, lower intermediate, A. For someone who is much more advanced, I’m going to give it a C. While also putting the caveat that you can load them. You can hold a weight over your head. There are ways to make it more difficult, but much better for beginners over anyone past that beginner stage. But it is a really great teaching tool.

0:36:25.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Teaching tool. If you want to do a set or two as like a… You could call it an ab warm-up or like a light set of abs. Cool, but similar to the dead bug, if it’s your main movement for the day and if you’re not doing something else to get your abs stronger on a day where you want to be training abs and you want to be getting your abs stronger, you’re going to have to hold it forever to get enough stimulus. Like to the point where someone who’s advanced, right, like similar to a bodyweight plank where you’re not making any changes to it. If someone can hold a plank for 10 minutes, that’s not a very efficient use of gym time, right? Or time in your week. So I agree with the split rankings on that one. Beginner, A. If you’re more advanced, definitely lower. C feels like a good place for it. Russian twist is next.

0:37:22.3 Jordan Syatt: I love Russian twists. I’m going to give them an A tier. I do program them frequently. My bias is that often people aren’t doing enough rotation in general. I think there are better rotational ab exercises overall, but I think it’s a great exercise. It does strengthen your abs. The difficult part is loading it, which is why I prefer other exercises. Maybe if I’m being more objective, it’s probably closer to a B tier realistically.

0:38:00.0 Mike Vacanti: Nostalgia.

0:38:00.2 Jordan Syatt: Because of the lack of… Yeah, it’s just it, I do love them and they are great, but if I’m being logical, probably closer to a B tier. If I want to be honest and then also give a more appropriate rating to the exercises that you can load the rotation better.

0:38:20.8 Mike Vacanti: I think that’s all fair. I think we need to balance the overabundance of science in the fitness industry right now with the visual of Jordan at age 13 with a hoodie on, like trying to cut weight for wrestling, doing some crazy Russian twists in some Boston, what is, you know, Massachusetts gym. And I think that offsets the science and keeps Russian twist barely in the A tier, which is where I’m putting them. And then I’m even fine putting something like, because I can see it’s not on this list, like a standing cable rotation in the higher A or even S tier. Or if we want to have a separate, we don’t actually have to do this, David, but if we were just to be ranking rotational abdominal exercises, we could put that higher than the Russian twist on that list.

0:39:08.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, cable core rotation is S tier for me.

0:39:11.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it’s a great move for many reasons that we don’t even need to get into because we’re slightly on a time crunch. We almost missed this episode, by the way, because I’m in an undisclosed location that we disclosed and schedules get weird, and we were almost not going to record. And then I was going to say something along the lines of we do a mentorship Q&A every single week throughout the year. And so if we’re not hitting podcasts every week and you want to, you know, if you want, what did Andreas say? You said something about the our podcast on your story.

0:39:46.2 Jordan Syatt: Tell ’em to skip the podcast and just join the mentorship.

0:39:48.0 Mike Vacanti: Andreas, like, amazing. Skip the podcast, go straight for the mentorship. That is, those Q&As are every single week.

0:39:55.0 Jordan Syatt: And we’re doing hot seats, a lot of hot seats this year where we’re like take, we’ve done a handful over the last year, couple of years, but big time now, very frequently in 2026 and beyond. We are like, for example, today, we’re going over JC, he’s in the mentorship, his consultation page where people can apply to join his program. We’re reviewing that to make sure that it’s written well and more optimized to make sure that when people are applying to join that, it helps lead into more people becoming actual clients. So we’ll review social media pages, posts, overall sales copy, whatever. So a lot of that this year in the mentorship.

0:40:35.4 Mike Vacanti: With a mock sales call in today’s hot seat, which is going to be really fun and beneficial, I think, not only for him, but for everyone listening, because we’ll be able to pause in real time and make adjustments. I’m pumped.

0:40:48.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:40:50.2 Mike Vacanti: Vertical leg crunch. I’m going to read the description because I’m not even sure…

0:40:56.0 Jordan Syatt: I don’t even know what that is.

0:40:57.3 Mike Vacanti: Lie on back, legs straight up, shoulders crunch towards ceiling. High activation for upper abs.

0:41:05.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh, so your legs are straight up in the air and you’re sort of like reaching towards your toes with your hands.

0:41:11.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah.

0:41:15.8 Jordan Syatt: I’m going C tier on that one. I was between C and B. It can be good. It can be a good exercise, but the range of motion is minuscule. And I would much rather use a bigger range of motion and be able to use something that you can overload it more easily with like a kneeling cable crunch would be, in my opinion, infinitely superior to that.

0:41:42.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I agree. For some reason, B was the first thing that came to me. But even like keeping your legs on the ground rather than having your legs in the air and doing the same exercise is going to allow you to get a bigger range.

0:41:55.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, agreed.

0:41:56.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. So C feels like the right place for it. There’s also so many exercises that target the upper abs and so many better than that one. Exercise ball crunch.

0:41:59.0 Jordan Syatt: You know who loved this exercise? Louie? Louie Simmons.

0:42:01.8 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:42:02.4 Jordan Syatt: He would do this constantly. But he would do it for like 100 to 300 reps at a time.

0:42:07.4 Mike Vacanti: Oh my gosh.

0:42:08.3 Jordan Syatt: So like he would just, he’d get down and he would do it versus band resistance. So he’d tie a band to the squat rack and then he would just do like a 100 reps, straight up and down and then a 100 reps for one side and a 100 reps to the other side for his obliques and just like 300 reps non-stop. And he his abs, dude. Oh my gosh, he had this turtle shell. It was insane. But I I really, I think it’s it can be a really good exercise. I’m not a fan of loading very heavy on an exercise ball. I’ve just seen too many videos of of massive accidents happening. That’s why I don’t like people doing dumbbell bench press on a physio ball. It’s just so stupid. So for all of those reasons, I’m going to give it a C tier. I think if you’re going to do it, much better for higher repetition, more like longer duration, work capacity, abdominal endurance. But like it’s nice because you get really nice extension, pretty big range of motion. I enjoy that. But I’ll tell you what, I’m never programming that for inner circle because I don’t or one-on-one clients because I don’t want them to fall off and have an issue. It’s just not worth the risk for me.

0:43:06.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I don’t remember ever programming this exercise. I think C’s a good place for it. I think you make a good point that endurance for high reps would be the place to use it for certain, like not for most clients, right? Because a 100 reps or 300 reps takes a long time. But similar to how, like when my daughter was first born, here, I’m going analogy land for you, Jordan. Carrying her, even though she was like six pounds, was fatiguing, right? Like carrying her for an extended period of time. And not like unbelievably fatiguing, but there was discomfort in like, okay, I’ve been holding her and walking around for a long time. Like trap, shoulder, bicep. Like I was kind of feeling it in various places. Whereas now she’s like, I actually don’t know how much she weighs. Three or four times what she weighed then. And she feels like nothing because I’ve been carrying her around for eight, nine months.

0:44:08.0 Jordan Syatt: Progressive overload, man.

0:44:09.2 Mike Vacanti: Progressive overload, but on something that is not that difficult, but you’re building endurance doing it for long sets.

0:44:21.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, agreed. I’ve been jealous of my wife because she’s got those wide hips. So she’ll put the babies and like rest them on her hips. And I’m just holding like in a constant tension, isometric bicep hold with the girls. It’s like, oh man, it’d be nicer just to have those hips and they just sit on the hip. You know what I’m talking about?

0:44:42.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, absolutely. That’s how we were made, it seems.

0:44:47.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Definitively.

0:44:49.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Not it seems, definitively. All right, we’re going rapid fire. Bird dog.

0:45:21.5 Jordan Syatt: F tier. I fucking hate bird dog. There’s a lot of emotion behind this one. I hate the bird dog. I hate it. I hate it because of how it’s been used. It’s been touted as like this incredible exercise that will eliminate back pain and that like this is like the ultimate. And it’s just like, I see people spending 20, 30, 40 minutes with their clients trying to get them to master the bird dog. And I’m just like, shut the fuck up. Like stop.

0:45:23.5 Mike Vacanti: Still people are doing… I know that was happening. Has the pendulum not swung back far enough yet? There’s still too much of that nonsense going on.

0:45:30.3 Jordan Syatt: It’s definitely not as much as it was. It’s not as much as it was, in that, like 2014, 2015 era.

0:45:36.0 Mike Vacanti: 67 years old, do a 67-minute warm-up, that type of thing.

0:45:39.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s not as much anymore. And this is probably just my like emotional response to that time in the industry.

0:45:48.7 Mike Vacanti: Good.

0:45:49.1 Jordan Syatt: But I’ve never programmed it in the Inner Circle. I’ve never programmed it in the Inner Circle and I don’t plan on it. I’m not a fan.

0:45:56.7 Mike Vacanti: I like the emotion. Definitely not the greatest exercise for building strength and ab muscle. I think it has more of its place in like a PT/rehab setting. So I’ll give it a C. But yeah, not great. I don’t remember what else we put in C. It’s definitely not a B tier. It’s either a C or a D tier in my book.

0:46:21.1 Jordan Syatt: In a rehab setting, I understand. Not in like a performance setting.

0:46:25.3 Mike Vacanti: Flutter kicks/scissor kicks.

0:46:27.5 Jordan Syatt: I think those are same as like a hollow body hold type thing.

0:46:34.1 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:46:58.8 Jordan Syatt: I think the…

0:46:59.5 Mike Vacanti: Depends on your level of fitness.

0:47:01.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, same tier as as hollow body holds for that. Because that’s what it is. It’s just a hollow body hold with movement.

0:47:08.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, getting your feet moving a little bit. We’re really going to move here. Side plank.

0:47:13.4 Jordan Syatt: Ooh, A tier. I almost said S tier.

0:47:18.2 Mike Vacanti: I’ll give it the A tier. Cable crunch.

0:47:20.8 Jordan Syatt: A tier.

0:47:21.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I’m also going A tier. What bumps it out of S tier for me is ability to do properly, ease of ability to do properly, and just some slightly better options.

0:47:37.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I know that is, that’s probably a favorite for most people to be an S tier though.

0:47:41.5 Mike Vacanti: I would have put it S tier if I didn’t have my crunch machine.

0:47:46.7 Jordan Syatt: Like, I’ve got the crunch machine, which is basically that, but in a more you can’t really fuck it up because it’s on a machine, whereas people really fuck up the cable crunch a lot.

0:47:57.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. And your crunch machine, unlike crunch machines from 2002, gives you a nice big range in the stretch.

0:48:05.7 Jordan Syatt: Huge. Yeah, yeah.

0:48:07.4 Mike Vacanti: Pallof press.

0:48:08.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh man. This one’s tough. Is this all Pallof press variations?

0:48:15.6 Mike Vacanti: Yes.

0:48:17.1 Jordan Syatt: I’m going S tier. I love the Pallof press. I love all the variations.

0:48:21.3 Mike Vacanti: It’s kind of why I can’t put side plank there because I have this at least half a notch above. So S.

0:48:30.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:48:30.9 Mike Vacanti: Alligator walk/bear crawl.

0:48:32.6 Jordan Syatt: Man, I really do like both of those. They’re great, but I wouldn’t make them great like for abs specifically. I think they’re really great exercises, but for like, we’re going to separate. For abs, I’m putting these in like C. As an overall exercise, much higher tier, but like for ab strength specifically, I’m putting it at like a C.

0:48:55.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I think C/A on these or even like C/D and A/B…

0:49:01.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:49:03.4 Mike Vacanti: Is a good split here. Last up, pot stir planks on the exercise ball.

0:49:10.4 Jordan Syatt: I’m going S tier. I can’t believe I didn’t think. I love stir the pot. Yeah.

0:49:15.0 Mike Vacanti: What’s interesting is they like plank had one line and then none of the plank variations had anything, but then this one got its own. I’m also putting this move in S tier. Yeah. Great exercise.

0:49:27.6 Mike Vacanti: Great episode. Try some of these ab exercises if you have not. Leave a five-star review, please. Like the YouTube video. We’re getting in weekly episodes 2026. See you next Tuesday.

0:49:39.6 Jordan Syatt: Enough with the bird dogs. See you next Tuesday.