The aim for us as practitioners at the Primal Movement Clinic is to provide a strategy for our patients to get out pain, stay out of pain and get strong. There are hundreds upon hundreds of books, articles and experts giving their insight into the correct method of abdominal conditioning, and the vast majority of them are incorrect, promoting faulty motor recruitment patterns.
Abdominal training myths:
We come across several common myths about abdominal conditioning, and these 3 in particular don't look like they will be disappearing from our gyms anytime soon. In light of this phenomenon, we thought it would be a good idea to let our readers and clients know about them.
Myth 1: Abdominal exercise reduces your midsection:
As Paul Chek describes in his book, Scientific Core Conditioning, there is no direct metabolic pathway from the muscle cells in your abdomen to the fat cells surrounding them, so relying on abdominal 'crunches is unfortunately not going to remove that spare tyre.
Myth 2: Training your abdominal daily:
The abdominal wall is made up of striated skeletal muscle, and as Charles Poliquin describes in his book, The Poliquin Principles, the abdominals are fast twitch muscle fibres. What does this tell us? It tells us that the abdominal wall will respond best to heavy resistance, low repetition sets, which as my colleague Andrew Johnston states in his book, Holistic Strength Training for Triathlon, what could you possibly be achieving with your three sets of one hundred or the pilates one hundred...? Nothing - you are simply detracting from the function of the abdominal wall. It is the job of the transverus abdominus to act as the endurance, stabilising muscle out of the abdominal wall, but that is for another time.
Andrew goes on to state:
High reps and inadequate recovery are a prescription for poor performance. Repeatedly breaking down your abdominals without allowing the necessary time for repair will eventually lead to adaptive shortening of this muscle group.
This can then as Paul Chek states, disturb the normal respiratory excursion of the ribs, increase the workload on the accessory respiratory muscles, and encourage poor posture, detracting from performance.
Myth 3: There is no lower abdominal
We can assure you this is not the case. The rectus abdominus is split into 8 sections, all with its own neurological input, as Paul Chek always says, it has not 1 brain but 8 brains! The Rectus Abdominus also has a distinct separate innervation below the umbilicus, allowing it be a prime mover from one end, and a stabiliser at the other. This is stated as far back as 1934 by Joel E.Goldwaithe in his book, Body Mechanics in Health & Disease.
Basic anatomy:
Something which people don't seem to realise is that the abdominal wall is split into 6 different sections:
1. Left internal oblique
2. Right internal oblique
3. Left external oblique
4. Right external oblique
5. Rectus abdominus (this can be split into L & R)
6. Transversus abdominus
Essential biomechanics:
So for those who rely on an 'Ab Cruncher' or the abdominal crunch from the floor as their sole method of abdominal training (6 pack - Rectus Abdominus), you are missing out on not only all the other remaining abdominal muscles named above, but you are only training between 0 - 30 degrees of movement of your Rectus Abdominus!
The standard crunch is complete within 30 degrees, which only targets the upper rectus abdominus fibres. In this exercise, trunk flexion and extension is limited to anterior to the mid frontal plane (from 0 degrees lying on your back, to 30 degrees flexion and back to flat surface, 0 degrees). From a functional perspective, there is very little carry over for an abdominal crunch from a flat surface be it lifting at the home or work place or in a sporting environment, or pretty much any activity at all - it's completely redundant.
The abdominal musculature are active as both prime movers and stabilisers through 45-80 degrees extension behind the mid frontal plane. This is a very important fact as many spinal injuries occur in a position of spinal extension and rotation - exactly where the majority of abdominal exercise does not occur. If you think about most sports, this position is very common (leaning back and twisting your body): tennis, rugby, cricket, baseball, volleyball, american football the list goes on. For instances of plain daily living, getting into and out of your car is a movement where so many people hurt their backs. The movement pattern of getting into a car is a complex combination of side bending, extension and rotation.
Basic training tips:
Most of you who have been doing abdominal crunches wrongly as described, will have ample upper abdominal strength, they will be alive and functioning. But what about the lower abdominals, the ones from your belly button down? The lowers will without doubt be under-activated. Florence Kendall in her book, Muscle Testing & Function, states that from the point of good posture, the lower abdminals are more important than the uppers.
This is particularly a BIG problem for those who are involved in sport or activity that demands a lot from the human body. When your body is teetering on the edge after being pushed to its limit, it will migrate to its position of strength, in fact, it will always migrate to the position of strength regardless of what you are doing. This leaves big areas of vulnerability that will be exposed when you push your body, inevitably injuries will occur.
If you have been training your abdominals incorrectly, not only will the lower abs under-activated, your lower back, your posture and your performance of daily living or sport, are vulnerable.
Taking this on board, you should train your abdominals accordingly
1. Activate your lower abdominals through coordinated and precise control, before the complex movement patterns required to do them become impaired by fatigue.
2. Train the obliques next, both left and right external and internal obliques.
3. Upper abdominal, which involve simpler movement patterns, should be performed last, or not at all depending on your ability to control your lower abdominal. Essentially you need to de-train you upper abdominal to bring them into sync with the rest of your abdominal wall.
Lower abdominal -> Obliques -> Upper abdominal
What do you do with all this information???
1. Place your abdominal specific training last in your gym workout.
2. Forget about abdominal crunches from the 'Ab Roller' or from a flat surface.
3. No more 50 - 100 sets of abdominal crunches of any kind - use a weight ball or a weight plate to reduce your reps and increase the load.
4. If you are upper abdominal dominant, de-train them until the lower abdominal has nullified the deficit.
5. Remember Lower abdominal -> Obliques -> Upper abdominal
Thanks for reading,
We Are Primal
Paul Chek: Scientific Core Conditioning
http://shop5.mailordercentral.com/thechekinstitute/Scientific-Core-Conditioning/productinfo/7201D/
Andrew Johnston: Holistic Strength Training for Triathlon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Holistic-Strength-Training-Triathlon-Johnston/dp/1456724037/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311943675&sr=8-1
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