For many of us, abs are about looks. The media teaches us that we want washboard abs, a tight, taut stomach and a very narrow waist. The media has also taught us through celebrity workouts that we need massive amounts of crunches to achieve this ideal. We crunch and we crunch and we get a variety of results. And while we crunch, we may be doing nothing to reduce our chances of injury or improve our overall health (and that washboard still remains elusive). There are many different muscles that make up your abdominals and some of them are very deep tissue muscles. An ideal workout trains all of them effectively and efficiently. While the crunch can be an effective exercise as part of a routine, too many can have negative results. According to Dr. Michael Yessis in his book “The Kinesiology of Exercise, doing excessive crunches can lead to a flattening of the lumbar curve, which will weaken your back, so if you are following the crunch, crunch, crunch plan, you will want to rethink that!
A strong core is essential to injury prevention and sports performance as well as functional performance (your “everyday things” like picking up your toddler or lifting your groceries out of the car). In order to have a strong core, you must perform a variety of exercises and challenge your muscles to engage passively during exercises that are not “core exercises”.
By engage, I mean drawing in and utilizing your core muscles isometrically during moves that are meant for other muscles (or during your functional daily routine). Engaging your core muscles protects your spine and prevents back injury by using the strength of your core rather than using your back. According to the National Academy of Sports Medicine, the drawing in maneuver should be performed at the beginning of every set. To learn this technique, you can ask a trainer, but here are the basics from the National Academy of Sports Medicine. From your hands and knees (on all fours), pull in your abdominals while keeping your back flat. Hold for as long as you can. Once you can hold this move for 3 reps of 20 seconds each, you can move onto the plank maneuver. The plank maneuver starts in a push-up position (a real push-up, not on your knees!) From that position, you perform the same drawing in as you did on all fours. Pull in your abdominals but maintain a flat back. I have a client who is in his 80s who likes to dazzle me with his ability to do serious planks and this shows his overall strength because his arms, back, chest and core have to be very strong and in balance in order to do that.
For the athlete, a strong core is essential. It protects your back during your golf swing, tennis swing, baseball swing, etc. It also transfers power from your legs through your body to your arms (for sports requiring force transfer such as golf, tennis, baseball, squash, etc). This allows you to hit harder and farther without straining your arms, elbows and shoulders (a common injury in these sports). A strong core also helps with balance. This is essential for everyone as we grow older to prevent falls but it is critical for many athletes such as cheerleaders, gymnasts, martial artists, etc)
So don’t just crunch and crunch because you want some vanity abs, look into doing some serious comprehensive core work in order to make yourself stronger and protect your back and to get improvement in many areas of your life.