lesson # 7 abs exercise

Sit ups and leg raises are mediocre exercises at best.

I've found that all varieties of sit-ups aggravate my lower back. Fifteen years ago I sustained a rupture of my fourth lumbar disc (L4) so severe that a neurosurgeon told me that I could forget about bodybuilding, I should never lift more than 40 pounds and I would eventually have to get surgery.

Despite the surgeon's grim prognosis, I rehabilitated my own back, but to this day, I still have a sensitive lumbar area. Doing the wrong abdominal exercises always brings back the pain almost instantly. I look at this as a positive thing because it has taught me a lot about what's really happening during certain ab exercises. It has also prompted me to modify my routine to avoid certain troublesome exercises that pull on the lumbar spine more than develop the abs.

Most people think sit-ups are primarily an ab exercise. They're not. Sit-ups work the abs, but largely in an isometric fashion. Sit ups are an "integrated" exercise that work the abs and hip flexors, but the hip flexors do most of the work (especially the way most people perform them - quickly, with the feet anchored, and with extra weight).

The psoas muscle, which is the primary hip flexor involved in the sit-up, originates on the lower lumbar vertebrae and inserts on the lesser trochanter of the femur (the top of your thighbone). Because the psoas is so heavily involved in the sit up and because the psoas is attached to your lumbar spine, sit ups cause a tremendous amount of "pull" to occur on your lower back.

Visualize an imaginary hand reaching through your stomach, grabbing a hold of your spine, and pulling on it as if the hand were trying to yank your spine right out the front of your stomach. That's essentially what's happening when you do sit ups or roman chair sit-ups. Ditto for supine full range straight leg raises.

You might say, "But I feel it working - I feel the burn!" Yes, but your abs aren't contracting dynamically through their full range of motion, they're contracting isometrically - and that causes the burn. It's similar to when you hold a dumbbell out at arms length in front of you for as long as you can. Before long your shoulder is burning like crazy to the point where you cant even hold the dumbbell any longer. You get great burn from this, but that's not how you'd train your shoulders is it? So why would you train your abs that way?

Sit-ups have made somewhat of a comeback lately, as the sports training and core training "gurus" claim that the hip flexors should be integrated into your ab routines. Well, unless you're an athlete with a specific need for b hip flexors, you have no history of lower back injury, and you already have a b lower back and b abdominals, forget about using sit-ups as your primary exercise. They're a mediocre exercise at best, and for some people with injuries (even "old" injuries like I have), sit ups are contraindicated completely.

Now… I know what you're thinking… You know someone who does a zillion sit ups a day, they have great abs and have never had a back injury. Well, first of all, if the individual has b abs and lower back and no pre-existing injuries, sit ups done with good form won't necessarily cause an injury. Second, as I said earlier, developing the abdominal muscles is not difficult. To a certain degree, you can develop the ab muscles from almost any ab exercise - even nothing but sit-ups or isometric exercises.

When I was back in my "human guinea pig" days, I once went over a year without doing any ab exercises whatsoever. After I dieted down to about the mid single digits in body fat, there were my abs, looking EXACTLY like they did the year before when I was training them two or three times per week. Knowing this, I'm often tempted not to train abs at all, except that I know b abs are important for stability and injury prevention.

Just because someone has great abs doesn't mean they're using the best routine. Part of it may be genetics, but mostly it just means they have low body fat! Let me drive this point home AGAIN - Having "killer six-pack abs" has less to do with training than with low body fat. Everyone - including you - has a six pack! Most people just can't see theirs yet.