Darien Johnson Explains How He Became ‘That Ab Guy’

With having a nickname like “That Ab Guy,” your core workouts have to be intense, but Darien Johnson likes to take things to another level. Just a scroll through his feed, you’ll find countless of ab workouts that border on creativity and insanity.

As a former pro football player, fitness has long been a part of Johnson’s routine for performance and as a way to push himself. When the pandemic shut down gyms, leaving countless of people searching for ways to get a quality burn and stay in shape, Johnson began posting his workouts on his Instagram account. Using such equipment as lawn furniture, resistance bands, five-gallon jugs of water and whatever else he could, his following took off and so did his desire to help those who would reach out to him for advice.

“I was doing it to give people some fun and unique ways to work out without having access to a gym but I had no idea it would have taken off the way it has. It’s kind of surreal to me still, because I love creating and have a big passion for it.”

Once the basics were covered, Darien Johnson began slowly ramping up the intensity of the posted workouts. He spent hours putting together creative ab exercises that he found fun and would continue to keep his followers talking and tagging others to either challenge them or just see what he could come up with next.

“When I create these exercises, the point is not only to entertain my audience, but the main goal for me is to test out my core strength and explosiveness,” Johnson said. Working out can definitely get repetitive and boring some would say, so I like to spice things up a bit to keep it fun.”

Johnson doesn’t advise jumping into any of the high-level workouts without building your way up toward them. Many of his workouts posted with the swipe feature has a lot of preliminary workouts that are building blocks to gain the strength to do some of the viral workouts. The workouts below are ones he recommends for those looking to attain an elite level of core strength.

All his workouts are now available at his website, where is also provides programming and nutritional guides as well.