Abdominal Wednesday... essential integration

This is getting good!
Abdominal Wednesday continues with another reason for throwing out those overused crunch and situp exercises...


Reason #5: The abdomen is made up of multiple muscles that are activated together during activity... Crunches and situps attempt to isolate one part of those muscles, instead of allowing integrated muscle activation.


Like I mentioned in a recent post, the abdominal muscles function to:

-Stabilize and protect the spine during complex motions and heavy lifting
-Prevent extreme movements (like hyperextension and excessive rotation)
-Transfer power from one part of the body to another
-Maintain proper pelvic alignment

In order to accomplish these tasks, the abdominal muscles have to work together. They have to activate in an integrated way. They have to work together in order to create stability or produce power.

Crunches, situps, and other typical abdominal exercises do not employ synergistic abdominal activation. They simply isolate one or two pieces of the ab musculature.

This practice will not only lead to very little gains in strength... but it will also fail to teach the stomach how to correctly activate muscles when they need to be activated!!

That's kinda dangerous to have abs that don't work properly...


Now, I'm not gonna give you an ab-targeted exercise today. I simply want you to perform all movements this week with the awareness that your abdominal muscles are braced... turned on... activated. Push yourself to lift relatively heavy weights on your compound movements - pushups, rows, squats, deadlifts, lunges, presses, and pulldowns - and keep tension in your stomach muscles at all times!!