Why Crunches And Crunches Are Bad For Your Back
Yes it’s true. These two standard abdominal exercises, crunches and crunches, can actually be murder for your lower back.
Because? Because they involve spinal flexion (rounding your lower back to allow you to bend forward at the waist). But according to research, that’s the exact mechanism that causes a herniated disc in the lower back. After all, most people “roll their backs” when they bend down to pick something up off the ground.
So it makes sense to limit the amount of crunches and crunches in your program. Also, you can’t reduce fat from one area, so you’re better off spending that exercise time on a better total-body workout or intervals. If you want to flatten your abs, you need to lose body fat.
So, to improve your abs, use the following techniques:
1) Take half the time you used to spend on crunches and do intervals with that time instead.
2) Spend the rest of your ab training time doing resistance ab exercises, such as planks, side planks, mountain climbers, and variations of these exercises.
3) Keep your abs tight in all exercises so that you work your abs with every move you make.
For advanced bodybuilding, there will come a time when you need to do traditional ab movements. But it’s better, to get results (ie grow your abs) to do this with resistance. Cable crunches are good, and you can get results with a relatively small amount of spinal flexion.
But really, when it comes to getting great abs, losing body fat is the most important aspect for most people. And if you’re a desk jockey, having abdominal endurance is more important to you than risking your back with classic ab exercises.
