Most abdominal exercises are a pain in the lower back for people with lumber lordosis. Many terminate a set of sit ups well before abs can be fatigued. If such a person continues with sit ups and simmilar exercises they will eventualy suffer from the compressed discs.
So, what ab exercises can be good alternatives for athletes with lumber lordosis?
laying leg raises with arms on floor, hands on floor where thighs are. This is an exercise that does not give me pain. Are there many others?
Whilst we are on the subject of abs, are isometric abs exercises a waste of time? They never seemed to increase my speed, but some swear by them. There’s lots of contradicting theories on abs work.
Also, for those that want to mention the ab work involved with heavy bar lifts, I personally do not weight train. Besides, some of the top power lifters said their bar lifts went up when they included seperate abdominal exercises.
wait wait, dont compensate for your weakness, fix it!. why tell him a bunch of excercises that will only act as a crutch for his problem. why the hell would you do that? you need to change your posture in all things you do. start squeezing your glutes while you stand bringing your hips under your body to fix what im guessing is a lumbar lordossis. dont allow a lordossis in your back when your doing ab excercises. it as simple (not easy) as that. your problem is neurological not physiological.
unless one can do a posture assessment on him, its hard to say.
if he is having a hard time doing abb work, maybe his abbs are weak, why not strengthen the abbs and do plenty of stretching for the lower back, glutes and hamstrings, also the front of the legs, quads, hip flexors etc. Get a few quallity massages.
Then, when the posture is fixed, regular sit ups will be a breeze and pain free.
James, lumber lordosis can be pretty severe in some people and just thinking about correct posture dont fix it. There can be some real deep seated problems. Massive tighness in some muscles, real weakk muscles in others. If left for too long, joints can develop spurs further limiting range of motion and locking one into a bad posture.
Goose, get your self checked out, physio’s or personal trainers should be able to do a detailed assessment on you to tell you exactly what is wrong and how to fix it. And, you’ll improve your sprinting ability once you do.
i have lordosis however i have very strong abdominal muscles. situps and other variations i get used to easy, doesnt fix anything on my posture, i do bridges for my lordosis but that might take a long long time before anything comes to fruition. apparently one of the trainers that has lordosis can flex the hips forward without squeezing the glutes, i can do this alittle bit but its hard as hell man.
your right, but it doesnt matter wht the problem is. its all neurological (most of the time). the point remains the same, dont work around the problem fix it or else it will always hinder you.
we agree on one thing. Fix the posture related problem.
However. There is not much point getting somebody to do sit ups if it hurts in the bones etc. 99 out of 100 guys will just not bother, unless you can show themm how to do abdominal work without that posture related pain.
All this is really a different A. from the orignal Q. Im sure he realises to fix the posture. Im sure we hope. We dont want to assume he is not getting on top of it.
So, as for other abdominal work.
Not sure of the name of one i am thinking off, or how best to describe, here go’s
lay on your back
legs outstreatched
feet just off the floor
alternatiing the legs, bring each knee up past the hips in a bent state
make sure the feet dont touch the ground when extending
repeat for many reps. Try for 50each leg.
Thanks for the replies. I saw a chiropractor a few years back and he said exactyl the same as the physiotherapist after doing scans etc…
There is a LOT of tightness in my back. They could tell straight away as any qualified therapist should, but ofcourse they did the thorough examination.
It is a ver deep rooted problem. My sister also has lumbar lordosis for example. Ever since we were kids, I can tell by family photos I have looked at.
So it may well take some time to “un-learn” the neuro logical situation.
I have allready done the “squeeze” glutes stuff, “hold in your tail bone” etc… but sit ups and many other abs exercises give a lot of pain in the mid spine region. The other day I got inspired by the Alan Wells program and tried the “chinnies” (elbow to opposite knee), and it hurt pretty bad. So again, I’ve had to give up at square one.
I can do laing leg raises without any problem but any exercise requiring to lift upper back off the matt gives pain.
I might just stick to laying leg raises, but that would make my lower abs toner than my upper abs. (Fact from experiance.) Yes, the lower abs are very important, but so are the upper.
I can do isometric crunches without spine pain, becase if i use enough resistance my muscle will fatigue before spine pain comes along. But that was the reason for my second question;…Are isometric abs exercise any good?, becuase I have heard that isometric endurance work does not contribute to sprint speed, and that it has no bearing on the kienesology of muscle action in sprinting.
Mate, if it works your abs, and pain free go for it.
Many say that cf does way too many abdominal work, up to 1000per day to be of any use for a sprinter!! Hey, ya cant knock results. Get into the isometrics. A stronger core is a stronger core. Your already limited by the number of exercises you can do. Find stuff that works for you, and do em.
I have had a ton of clients with this problem. With all the clients I’ve had, they all had weak abs. So their backs were doing all the work. So if you sit up and your abs don’t do their job, your erectors fire so you can actually get off the ground.
It is a neural thing but you could also use some massage in conjucntion with the stretching you’re doing.
As far as exercises to do, everyone was different. Some bothered some and not others. One thing is for certain, the more they stuck to it the better it got.
Isometric ab exercises are great. Especially for beginners or people with pain issues.
Goose PM me and I’ll send you some stuff from work if you wish.
