abdominal exercises and back pain
Article by rob maraby
Traditional methods of training your abdominal muscles can often result in back problems.
There are many abdominal exercises that are harmful for the back and yet are still used all across gyms,exercises like leg raises, bent-legged sit-ups, Roman-chair sit-ups and hanging leg raises are recipes for back pain!
These exercises often create back problems or aggravate an existing one.
The good news is that with just a little modification, these exercises can be made safe and effective, for instance the modified hanging leg raise where the knees are kept bent and pulled into the chest can be a terrific abdominal exercise!
Simply by bending the knees you remove the focus from the lower back and place it on tilting the pelvis upward towards the chest. Which allows an effective abdominal contraction.
The problems caused by traditional abdominal exercises arises from the confusion between spinal flexion and hip flexion.
Spinal flexion is the curling of the spine by using the rectus abdominis and the obliques.
. These muscles are fixed from the sternum and ribs down to the pubic bone and sides of the pelvis. When these muscles are strengthened, it reduces the inward lumbar curvature of the spine and the curve of the lower back remains healthy. The result is minimum strain on the lower back and maximum abdominal contraction.
On the other hand, hip flexion occurs when the lower body is bent at the hips and when the knees are brought to the chest. Examples include the leg raise, Roman chair sit-up, hanging leg raise and different variations of the standard sit-up. These abdominal movements involve the abdominal muscles isometrically and the actual action of these abdominal workout exercises is performed by the hip flexors.
The hip flexors are the iliopsoas buried in the body and the rectus femoris,-These are not visible to the naked eye. If hip flexors are well developed, they can lead to an exaggerated curve of the lower back. This can result in or lead to back pain.
Therefore, for bodybuilders, development of hip flexors through abdominal workout exercises does not bring any advantage.
Many traditional abdominal exercises result in onset of back pain. Most of these ab exercises fail to effectively train the abdominal muscles. They do however cause discomfort and ache in the abdominal region of the body.
This ache you feel is a result of the combination of fatigue of the hip flexors plus the fatigue from the abdominal muscles that are isometrically contracted while the hip flexors are working.
This combined effect provides the illusion that the abdominal muscles are being thoroughly trained through this routine of incorrect abdominal workout exercises.
When desiring to develop the abdominals muscles, you must choose ab workout exercises that train the spinal flexors and not the hip flexors.
Choose exercises that curl the spine and not those that require the upper or lower body moving at the hips.
This means avoid the sit up and straight legged leg raise and perform crunches, knee ups and bent knee leg raises!
About the Author
Rob Maraby is the author of the FastMuscles program and many other,Get Six Pack Abs articles!
His way of building lean muscle mass is new and controversial- all it takes is just 15 minutes, twice a week to gain lean muscle mass, read more at
http://www.fastmuscles.com
