Ab Exercises

With summer fast approaching you see all kinds of weird and wonderful ab exercises popping up around the place, with everyone attempting to do something crazier than the next. I decided to find out which exercises are more beneficial to us, and point out those causing more harm than good.

We need to understand why doing certain exercises are so bad for us. Firstly, it usually involves over-working the upper abdominals and hip flexors whilst under working the lower abdominals and more importantly your DEEPER abdominals like your transverse abdominus and pelvic floor muscles. 

Weaker deep stomach muscles means you have much less dynamic support in your abdominals and lower back and can even lead to a prolapse. On the flip side, if you do the right exercises you will get much more recruitment from your lower abdominals (below your belly button) and those deeper tummy muscles.

The other big problem with massive strengthening in the area, which we see a lot of in the clinic, is that these overactive muscles end up pulling your rib cage forward and down, in front of the line of gravity. This causes a more stooped and rounded posture, increasing the amount of load in the muscles and joints of your lower back.

The diaphragm is also affected by over-activity of the upper abdominals. As we know the diaphragm is responsible for drawing air into our lungs by contracting and flattening as it descends into your abdomen. Over-activity, shortening and general bracing of these muscles, like trying to hold your belly in, inhibits the diaphragm from performing its descent and means you take a shorter breath.

BAD EXERCISES

Now that we have a basic understanding on why some abdominal exercises can be harmful to us, here are some of the worst ab exercises I have seen..

1.Sit-ups

By sit-ups I mean those full range motions people do, whether they are on a piece of equipment or just lying on your back. Not only is this exercise doing all the poor things we talked about above but people will throw themselves at those last few creating really scary shearing forces in their lumbar spine, especially the higher segments. It ends up being no surprise that it is really common to hear people ‘putting their back out’ from sit ups.

2. Double leg lifts

These exercises have the ability to create a bad back from a healthy back or make a bad back even worse. This exercise over trains your powerful hip flexor muscles (psoas).  These muscles attach to your lumbar vertebrae and pull on them as you try and lift those heavy legs off the ground. It causes compression and shearing forces and you will usually feel uncomfortable doing these exercises.

3. The abs cradle

This is one of those devices that is being sold as a quick and easy way to achieve ‘the stomach of your dreams’. Unfortunately, like most exercise shortcuts, it has been proven to be 80% less effective than the traditional abdominal crunch and that’s not even the worst part. Due to the rocking motion the device is more likely to over stretch your neck and cause damage of some form to either the muscles or discs in your cervical spine.

GOOD EXERCISES

Replace those poor exercises we talked about before with these.

1.Reverse Curl Up

This exercise is great in controlling the lower abdominal muscles and also supporting your lumbar spine. Transverse abdominus and your internal obliques are really targeted in this exercise and will help to switch those protective muscles back on and strengthen them up. It also has the added benefit of aiding good breathing technique by not using those upper abdominals so much.

To do this exercise all you need to do is start by lying on your back with knees and hip bent at 90 degree angles and slowly round your lower back as you bring your knees to your chin whilst keeping your head on the floor. Repeat this 15x

2. Legs Passing

Legs passing is very similar to the reverse curl up. It again is very good at recruiting TrA if you do it properly.

Start this exercise by lying on your back with knees bent and both feet flat on the floor. Raise your right knee to your chest, bringing it nice and close to your right armpit and then slowly return it. Whilst the right is returning to the starting position move your left knee towards your left armpit so the legs pass each other mid-air. On the way down your foot should just very lightly touch the floor before moving back up towards your chest. Ensure that at all times you never straighten your legs and put that strain on your lower back but rather always keep them bent and keep your back flat on the floor. Perform x15 on each leg.

3. Bird Dog

This exercise is excellent at targeting your multifidi muscles, these muscles wrap around your spine and hook into the back of your pelvis to provide stability to these areas no matter what movement you are performing. 

To perform this exercise start on your hands and knees, sink your tummy all the way to the floor then lift it back up as high as you can towards the ceiling and meet in the middle. Make sure you don’t collapse through your chest and shoulder blades. 

Hold this position and now lift and extend one of your arms straight out in front of you and hold this position for 3-5 seconds ensuring that you keep a nice and position and then slowly return to four point kneeling. Now switch to the other arm and perform the same movement. Repeat this 8-10x on each arm. 

Mastered this and looking for more of a challenge? Try lifting the opposite leg whilst you lift your arm (i.e. right arm and left leg) keeping a nice and stable base through the movement. 

Remember to always seek out a health care professional before undertaking any exercise regime!!

Happy exercising.