Exercises

Disclaimer: This method is experimental. Participate at your own risk.

To perform these exercises, you need an EMS device (non-affiliate link). You also need a stationary bike (and thermal socks).

Part 1 activate muscles

Oblique abdominal exercise 1

The oblique abdominal muscles pull in horizontal directions. In vertical directions, they prevent the intestines from hanging out. The oblique abdominal muscles are (vertically) as wide as the rectus abdominis are long. It is attached at the bottom to the fourth part of the rectus abdominis and at the top to the rib cage. When this muscle becomes slack, you get love handles.

Disclaimer: After doing this exercise, you will be able to do the sit-up again. However, that does not give you a six-pack because there is a thick layer of fat on your rectus abdominis. If you do the sit-up too enthusiastically, the fourth part will swell and you will grow out of your pants. (Stop doing the sit-up and the fourth part will shrink again).

  1. Walk a few times a week at a brisk walking pace (+ 3 km/h) until you start to pant. A brisk walking pace is the pace at which your arms swing forward and backward by themselves.
  2. Rotate your hips a few times a day. This gives you painful stitches in your side. This is muscle pain in your oblique abdominal muscles and will disappear in a week or two
  3. Rotate your hips 10 times a day
  4. Sitting on the edge of your bed, rotate your torso 5 times a day
  5. After about four weeks, brisk walking suddenly becomes a lot easier. Stop exercises 3 and 4 immediately, otherwise you may get back pain.
  6. Walk 100 meters a few times a week at a brisk walking pace to keep your oblique abdominal muscles trained. As your arms swing straight forward and back, they act as the counterweights that your obliques need to train. Do this until you start walking naturally.

Calf muscle exercise 1

This exercise promotes sweat production in your feet while working your rectus abdominis and obliques.

Do this exercise barefoot or in socks. The soles of most shoes are too stiff to push your toes down properly.

This exercise can cause cramps in your lower legs and feet at night. The cramps will go away after about two weeks. Unless the calf muscle is damaged, in which case it can take a few months. The fastest way to get rid of cramps is to stretch the muscle in question.

This exercise causes strange feelings in your toes. But you’ve probably never felt your toes before. Which means that any feeling is by definition a strange feeling.

Do this exercise until you start doing the natural running exercise.

Do this first thing in the morning.

  1. Toe. Cycle for one minute at a brisk pace on the home trainer bike, placing your toes on the pedals and pushing down hard. This will train your calf muscle. Set the resistance of your bike to the lowest setting.
  2. Foot. Cycle for one minute at a calm pace, sliding your feet forward until your heel is almost on the pedals. This will give your calf muscle a rest.
  3. Toe.
  4. Foot.
  5. Toe.
  6. Foot.
  7. Toe.

Obliques (2) and rectus abdominis exercises

  1. Activate the oblique abdominal muscles. For this you need an EMS device with electrodes of 5 x 10 cm (1.9 x 3.9 in). Place the first electrode on your left and right side at the height of the belly button, about 10 cm from the belly button and the second 10 cm back. Start daily at a low level and level up as far as possible. Do this for ten minutes, shortly before going to sleep. IF your feet are cold, they will warm up and after a month they will start to cool down again. Continue with the next exercise
  2. Don’t do this exercise. Take off your t-shirt while doing the calf muscle exercise. Do your rectus abdominis automatically contract while cycling? Then you can skip this exercise. IF you had cold feet, then you have already done this exercise, or something similar.
  3. Heel. Put on your shoes and place the heel of your shoe against the back of the pedal. Cycle twice a day for ten minutes. Do this at the lowest resistance. After a few months, your toes will get cold. Then continue with the next exercise. With this exercise, you train your calf muscles, which gives the rectus abdominis extra energy. With this exercise, the chance of injuries is smaller than with the calf muscle exercise.
  4. Ball/heel. Put on your shoes and place the ball of your foot on the pedal. Cycle for five minutes. Place the heel of your shoe against the pedal and cycle for five minutes. Do this twice a day until your toes get colder. Do this at the lowest resistance. Our body has a built-in reflex that, if there is enough energy available, ensures that the rectus abdominis muscles are contracted when the front half of the soles of the feet is extra loaded. By now, the fourth part of your rectus abdominis muscles is strong enough to pull on the obliques and produce a little extra energy that your rectus abdominis muscles can use.
  5. Ball. Put on your shoes and put the balls of your feet on the pedals and cycle twice a day for ten minutes. Do this at the lowest resistance. If you get cold toes increase to two times twenty minutes and then two times thirty minutes. Then go to the next exercise.
  6. Increase resistance. Cycle on the balls of your feet. 2 minutes at resistance 2 + 8 minutes at resistance 1. When this works go to 2 minutes at resistance 3 + 8 minutes at resistance 1. When you pedal harder you pull the fourth part of the rectus abdominis harder. When resistance 3 works go to the next exercise. IF you had cold feet when you started this, this might be a good time to stop. With the next exercise they cool down again for two weeks. After that your feet will warm up again. However you might have regular cold toes for months. If you stop here you will have to do the calf muscle exercise for the rest of your life.
  7. Wave. You haven’t used the first three parts of your rectus abdominis since they were sabotaged when you were 14 years old. Before you can contract them, you have to get them moving. Do this exercise twice a day, just before you do the bike exercise. Pull in the upper half of your stomach. Pull in the lower half of your stomach. Relax the upper half. Relax the lower half. Repeat as many times as possible. Cycle twice a day for ten minutes at the lowest resistance with the ball of your foot on the pedals. Do this exercise for two weeks and then move on to the strength test. Your feet can cool down quite a bit during this exercise. At an ambient temperature of below 15° C they can even get quite cold.

Part 2 Flatten your belly

Lift up

Stand upright with your knees slightly bent (to prevent back pain). Bend forward and stand back up. When standing up, you engage the first three parts of the rectus abdominis to prevent coming up too quickly and falling backward.

Do a set of 8 repetitions daily.

If you feel at risk of falling backward when standing up from a chair, do three sets of 8 repetitions that day.

Obliques 3

Lie on your back and use your rectus abdominis muscles to lift the upper half of your torso slightly. A bulge will form just above your navel. Place the heel of your hand on the bulge and attach the front electrode near the tip of your index finger and the rear one 10 cm behind it. Stimulate the oblique abdominal muscle for 10 minutes.

When you sit, you will notice that the first two parts of the rectus abdominis muscles automatically pull up half a centimeter. After a few days, your toes will get cold while doing this. Switch to obliques 4.

Obliques 4

Lie on your back. Place the heel of your hand on the protrusion below your navel and attach the front electrode at the tip of your index finger and the back one 10 cm behind it. Stimulate the oblique abdominal muscle for 10 minutes.

At this location, the oblique muscles generate slightly less energy, so you will have to contract the first two parts of the oblique muscles yourself. Over time, it will become automatic. Initially, you will get cold toes; this will pass and then return. Switch to oblique 3.

Start with natural walking. To train the fourth part of the straight abdominal muscles, you will need to start running in a few months.

Check your phosphorus intake, usually a glass of milk per day.

The feedback system

The first two parts of the rectus abdominis muscles pull your belly up half a centimeter. Your belly consists of your intestines, the contents of the intestines, and the layer of fat that has formed around the intestines. In obese people, the belly weighs 25 kg. In thin people, it weighs between 1 kg and 10 kg, depending on what they have eaten in the last few weeks.

After you have switched between oblique 3 and 4 a few times, you must start pulling up the first two parts yourself. Over time, it will happen automatically.

It is even possible that, over time, you will have to learn to relax the first two parts because you suffer too much from cold toes.

Calf muscle exercise 2

Go cycling, on a stationary bike or on a real bike outside. Place your toes on the pedals to train your calf muscles. Start with an average of fifteen minutes a day. The more you cycle, the more fat you burn.

Part 3 Natural walking and running

Walk/run 500 meters per day. Preferably on an uneven grass surface. This is not cardio training, but strength training.

If you sustain an injury while walking or running, continue with the straight abdominal exercise while pausing your walking or running. As you lose weight, the painful muscle breaks down when you are not using it. When you start walking or running again, it is replaced by a muscle that is better suited to your current use of the muscle. This is the benefit of the yo-yo effect.

I walked and ran in 2025. The walking went well, the running much less so. In December, I sustained an injury and stopped. In February 2026, I started walking again.

Walking

Naturally, two-legged animals walk by letting themselves fall forward. But if you are 1.8 meters tall and you stumble, your head hits the ground at such a high speed that it is very bad for your health. For that reason, humans have an adaptation.

By the time you get here, you are able to pull the upper half of your torso and head slightly forward, allowing you to fall forward.

Walk at a brisk pace. That is the pace at which you have to swing your arms back and forth.

Running

Is it possible to overcome the yo-yo effect? ​​In theory, if you burn much more fat than you build muscle, your weight would fluctuate, but on balance, you would lose weight. The question is how many muscles you need to engage to burn enough fat.

Start walking and lift your forearm. Your torso bends forward and you bend your knees. When you lock your ankle joint, your extended foot turns into a lever that pushes your body thirty centimeters forward with every step. Using this technique, your body’s energy expenditure is no longer dependent on your speed but on your body weight. This is a major advantage when you weigh 50 kg (like I did when I was 18) but slightly less so when you weigh 94 kg.

To make this technique possible, you must engage ten muscle groups: the muscles in your feet, on the front and back of your lower legs, thigh muscles, inner thigh muscles, gluteal muscles, back muscles, obliques, rectus abdominis, and your biceps. Is this enough to overcome the yo-yo effect? ​​See my weight.

While walking, lift your forearms to a 45-degree angle. Your torso will bend forward and your knees will bend. You are now running at a speed of 3.5 km/h and training muscles you haven’t used since you were 12 year-old. When, after a few months, you feel that your muscles are strong enough, lift your forearms to a horizontal position. Now you are running about 6 km/h. When you lift your forearms higher, you engage your rectus abdominis muscles and pull your torso further forward, placing a much heavier load on your leg muscles. When you lift your forearms high enough that you can touch your shoulders with your hands, you have reached the maximum speed of about 15 km/h.

Muscle pain

You have barely used your rectus abdominis and back muscles in recent decades, so you should expect muscle pain.

The problem is that it is hardly possible to feel the difference between pain in your rectus abdominal muscles and stomach pain. It is also hardly possible to feel the difference between pain in your back muscles and pain in the tendons in your back.

So be careful with what you eat. This is a bad time to accidentally poison yourself. Be very careful with back pain. It is better to take a break for a few days with back muscle pain than to continue training with damaged tendons.

Part 4 The rest of your live

Doe een of twee keer per dag de rol-up.

Integreer deze oefening in je leven. Gebruik hem om ‘s ochtend uit bed te komen of om op te staan wanneer je aan het strand ligt.