Saturday, April 21, 2007

From Alwyn's blog yesterday -

By Mike Robertson and Eric Cressey:
"Believe it or not, crunches can actually lead to shoulder, upper back, neck, and elbow/forearm/hand problems over time. Your rectus abdominus runs from the rib cage to the pelvis, so when it contracts during a brunch, it depresses the rib cage. If the rectus abdominus chronically shortens from hundreds of crunches every day, you'll develop a kyphotic posture that, in turn, allows the scapulae to wing out and up, compromising the muscles and nerves of the upper extremities. Therefore, the best rectus abdominus exercises emphasize pure stabilization rather than actual muscle shortening; these exercises can be complemented with reverse crunch variations (external oblique emphasis), as these exercises will posteriorly tilt out pelvis without pulling the rib cage downward."

I want to shout this from the roof tops and scream this a people I see "crunching" for their "core work"!

There is a HUGE difference between Core activation, Core training and abdominal training - Crunches are an example of an abdominal exercise - they are NOT a Core exercise!

4 comments:

Mark Reifkind said...

I totally agree with this. The best stuff I have seen on this entire subject is Paul Cheks Scientific Back training> all meat and no potatoes.
While chek got some things wrong he certainly got more things right.great knowledges.

Joe Sarti said...

Awesome post! Simply put now if only people would get it

Brett Jones said...

Thanks Rif and Joe - it kills me to see people crunching and thinking they are performing "core" work!

Franz Snideman said...

What? The crunch isn't good for you?
Damn!

just kidding. As Mark says, Paul Chek was one of the first Strength Coaches to preach the negative consequences from crunches.

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