Why do so many people with lower back pain do endless abdominal exercises? From sit ups to crunches, you may have done literally thousands of these yet your lower back pain remains - and no six pack!
If these exercises are used often, why do they not cure your low back pain as well as they should?
Are you doing your exercises correctly? Should you change the type of exercise? Buy another machine you see on TV - you know the latest and best way to do abdominal exercises.
Yes you see them everywhere, you have tried many machines, changed the style and still no dramatic changes.
The answer to your problems is actually simpler than you realize.
Do you want abdominal exercise to change your lower back pain, or to just improve overall structural stability - and definitively if you want a six pack. You need to do the following:
Firstly you need to stretch the muscles that work opposite to your abdominals. Why? If they are too tight then your abdominal will be weaker. Just like a see-saw - one side goes up and the other down. So, if one muscle is too tight, the opposite will be too weak. If you are trying to change your abdominals then you need to stretch both the lower back muscles (erector spinae) and the hip flexor muscles.
Secondly, if you want to change the strength of the abdominal muscles you must improve their nerve and blood supply. Fail to do this and you can do thousands of sit-ups, crunches etc and still take forever to change the muscle strength.
If the nerve or blood supply is compromised, the abdominal muscles will lose power and strength. Abdominal exercises will then fail to change the muscle. This change in nerve and blood supply can come from various structural changes in the lower back or pelvis. It can also happen from chronic abdominal weakness and the supply changes because of habit. The nerve and blood supply to the abdominals can be stimulated with various reflexes; one is on the inside of the thigh. If you rub your inner thigh and it is tender compared to rubbing elsewhere. Then chances are the nerve supply at least is lower than it should be.
The low back and pelvis can be corrected using simple stretches and joint mobility methods to re-balance the pelvis and lower back. Lower back pain is commonly caused by both weaker abdominal muscles combined with minor joint disruption in the area.
Either way, both situations can be changed and then the abdominals will strengthen easily and quickly if you stretch the opposite functioning muscles and improve blood and nerve supply. Lower back pain is easily corrected if you target the right mechanisms that create it. Weakened abdominals is one of most common causes of low back pain, especially chronic lower back pain.
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