Elars 21: according to Stuart McGill
“The press-heels sit-up was proposed by several clinical groups, on theoretical grounds, to inhibit psoas by activating the hamstrings. In fact, electromyogrphic assessment (Juker et al., 1998) proved this to be mythical. …Activating the hamstrings creates a hip extensor moment, and
sit-ups require hip flexion. During this type of sit-up, the psoas is activated to even higher levels to overcome the extensor moment from the hamstrings and produce a net flexor moment. This type of sit-up produced the highest level of psoas activation of any style of sit-up we quantified!”
page 245 of Low Back Disorders, Evidence-Based Prevention and Rehabilitation by Stuart McGill
I was talking about crunches. Nice try though. Imagine a string between your sternum and your belly button. To shorten this string would you need not use your hip flexors. NIkolouski,I was referring to a simultaneous hip extension and trunk flexion, not just neutral hip position. Anyways this is already accomplished by having something under your low back…that’s what I mean…
sorry, i still don’t get it; do you mean lowering lower body and flexing upper body at the same time and from the position mentioned above?
thanks!
It’s like humping the air while doing a crunch.
knees bent, up to you, or the better you get, the straighter the legs?
I believe this is due to the fact that fat commonly covers the lower portion of your abs, while the upper part of the abs has less fat in front of them. I don’t think that either area is more developed than the other.
like the guy on your pic… 
, exactly…
that’s my pic actually. :rolleyes:
nice, no doubt!
you haven’t seen mine tho…
i am the guy next to Arnie in “Twins”…
Test Test Test
I would like to know the answer to this as well.
You’re right I shouldn’t disregard everything he says just because I think some of his ideas aren’t great. I don’t know enough about him to trash him like that.
I can’t remember now why they do that. It certainly can’t do any harm from the results of the athletes, but I still think abs should be trained isometrically outside of sprinting (planks and swiss ball exercises) because their main purpose is to hold that way for posture. Maybe there would not be much of a difference either way.
Owing to multiple innervations and a number of tendinous attachments along its length, different movements do differentially activate the upper and lower portions of the rectus.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8976314&dopt=Citation
unlucky…
anyways…
I cant believe someone hasnt answered precisely why ab exes are important for sprinting. Iwas going to give a general guess answer, like because the core area must be solid for motivatin’ a body down the track asap.
Wht are the best ab exes?
I saw a site that listed them, the best were bicycle crunches and the ones where you raise your body off the ground from the torso and raise your legs (this I have done and seems the easiest of all ab exes).
The above post of mine has appeared twice today as a “1 minute” post, but it was posted ages ago. Just saying… 
EDIT: well, the post below now… :rolleyes: