Dangerous Ab Workout Information- Avoid Injury!

In their rush to try to achieve the perfect set of fantastic six pack abs, a lot of people end up doing exactly the wrong thing and either waste their time, create a counter-productive effect, or even worse, injure themselves. I see it in the gym every day… people setting themselves up for a nasty injury.

I’ve been practicing chiropractic for ten years, so I’m a pretty good guy to clue you in on which are the dangerous ab workouts. This information can save you a trip to my office as well as sparing yourself from a whole pile of pain… not to mention lost workout time.

Most of these bad ab workouts involve twisting or bending in a direction that runs contrary to the direction of the joints in the lower back. The joints in your vertebrae are called “facet joints” and come in pairs at each and every vertebral level. That’s right; each individual vertebra in your spine has two joints. They don’t look like a ball-and-socket joint like your hip; they’re both flat and the opposing joint surfaces glide across each other, kind of like two flattened palms sliding past each other.

What that translates to, is there is a very strict direction of travel for your lumbar (lower spine) joints. Specifically, the lower back joints are aligned to glide front to back… so bending forward and backward like you’re trying to touch your toes.

If you try to twist at the level of the lower back, you push the joint surfaces together. Now, if you do it gently, like looking over your shoulder, it’s no big deal. But if you do it violently or strain at it, you’ve got a good chance at jamming those joints together hard enough to damage them. Bad idea.
You’ve heard of this before. This is how people injure themselves shoveling snow. They bend over, pick up a huge heavy pile of snow, and then twist and heave to one side, violently jamming those lumbar joints together. The same thing can happen if you do the wrong ab workout.

One of the worst ones? The dumbbell side bend. You’ve seen this at the gym… heck, you may be DOING this at the gym. It’s where you stand there with a heavy dumbbell in one hand, and then bend to the side in an attempt to build up the side oblique ab muscles.

Take a look at the motion. It’s not front to back. In fact, it’s ninety degrees to that, and even worse, it’s done with heavy resistance. It’s almost a textbook example of what NOT to do. Avoid this exercise like the plague, unless you want a hefty chiropractic bill down the road.

Even worse than the dumbbell side bend is the plate-loaded side twist. This is a machine you sit at, with a pad mounted horizontally in front of you that you wrap your arms around. Then, you twist this pad under resistance (from the classic stack of plates) to the side, twisting your torso like you’re looking over your shoulder.

Just like the wrong way to shovel snow, this machine virtually guarantees that you will jam your delicate lumbar joints together and end up walking funny… not “Funny ha-ha”, more like “Funny Oh Dear God My Back Hurts and I Can’t Walk Straight”.

The bottom line? Avoid forceful twisting at the lower back area to avoid injury... I know, I know, some of you are freaking out now, wondering how you can possibly train your obliques.

Simple. Pick exercises like the side plank or bicycle that will either stress the obliques without twisting the spine (side plank) or allow for a SMALL amount of lower back twisting coupled with MOSTLY a forward to backward motion.
Otherwise, I'll see you in my office!