The most powerful memories, the ones that stay with you throughout your life generally involve strong emotion mixed with physiological changes in the body. The brain recalls the event, but your muscles store a component of the memory as well. This is why everyone remembers the day in grade school when those exercise challenge groups took a fun day of gym class and turned it into a living nightmare of jumping jacks, push ups and crunches! No one trained for this, it came out of no where and all you wanted to do was not be last place in your class so you gave it your all.
Fortunately for us, we were young. Any damage we caused by going from zero to sixty while doing sits ups on a concrete surface were erased by the benefits of youth. Unfortunately, this model of exercise, like the memories of that fateful day have stuck with us. We hear our doctors talk about it, hear it on the news, that one really fit friend tells us " Core strength is important". The obvious choice is to start doing those crunches and get stronger. This is in itself not a problem, but allow me to help you make an informed choice about your exercise.
Let me start by saying if you have ever experienced low back pain to any extent or are currently in pain crunches do exactly what the name implies, it crunches your back and is almost certainly making things worse. If you have a strong core and perfect form crunches are effective, but we live in an imperfect world. The weak core gives out but we keep pushing, form breaks down and we start using compensatory muscles. The majority of the pressure ends up being carried by your spine, oops!
Allow me to introduce you to another grade school favorite (if you were a boy, maybe much more so) The Dead Bug.
Fortunately for us, we were young. Any damage we caused by going from zero to sixty while doing sits ups on a concrete surface were erased by the benefits of youth. Unfortunately, this model of exercise, like the memories of that fateful day have stuck with us. We hear our doctors talk about it, hear it on the news, that one really fit friend tells us " Core strength is important". The obvious choice is to start doing those crunches and get stronger. This is in itself not a problem, but allow me to help you make an informed choice about your exercise.
Let me start by saying if you have ever experienced low back pain to any extent or are currently in pain crunches do exactly what the name implies, it crunches your back and is almost certainly making things worse. If you have a strong core and perfect form crunches are effective, but we live in an imperfect world. The weak core gives out but we keep pushing, form breaks down and we start using compensatory muscles. The majority of the pressure ends up being carried by your spine, oops!
Allow me to introduce you to another grade school favorite (if you were a boy, maybe much more so) The Dead Bug.
This dead bug wasn't found in the corner of Mrs. Green's 3rd grade class, it is a better way to strengthen the core AND stabilize the spine while you do it. There are many variations and levels you can work through, but the basics are the same. Keep the low back and neck flat on the ground and supported while you use your elevated arms and legs to activate the core muscles. We are strengthening the core and stabilizing the spine at the same time, Ahh it makes my spine feel good just typing about it.
Everyone is right by the way, a strong core helps support the spine and prevents early onset arthritis and degeneration that can lead to debilitating issues later in life. But next time you try to strengthen those core muscles, keep your spine in mind.
Everyone is right by the way, a strong core helps support the spine and prevents early onset arthritis and degeneration that can lead to debilitating issues later in life. But next time you try to strengthen those core muscles, keep your spine in mind.
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