Crunches Cause Pain

 Do Crunches Cause Back Pain?

I remember back in elementary school many years ago they used to have the fitness levels of excellence -Gold, Silver and Bronze. Doing as many sit ups (crunches) as you can in minute was the test. Even back then in the mid seventies we all had difficulty completing it.

My friends would complain about back pain or head pain from hitting the floor from trying so hard. In the end most of us were just happy to complete the test. Now many years later with a better understanding of proper exercise technique and injury prevention and also having suffered the consequences of poor exercise selection I find that many people who work with young soccer players still use the abdominal crunch as part an exercise routine.

I feel it serves limited or no purpose to an overall strength and conditioning program. There are several reasons why I prefer other exercises to increase abdominal strength to the crunch.  

First, the "Rectus Abdominus" ( 6 pack muscle) is superficial It is a "pretty" muscle. Since it is superficial it does little to support the rest of the body for function.

Second, completing fifty to a hundred crunches a day will only lead to very poor posture that will affect both the lower body and upper body.   For players looking to burn fat, doing crunches is less effective than other exercises. Due to the location of the attachments of the "rectus abdominal" muscle, the chest is brought closer to the stomach causing many postural problems.

 It is my guess that many young soccer players who are obsessed with six pack abs do too many abdominal crunches and end up with rounded shoulders and hip flexor problems.   In part two of this topic I will give you what I believe are better exercises and why. 

Planks and Pillars Build Your 6 Pack Abs

My preferred abdominal exercises are "planks" and/or pillars. I like these exercises because you have to work the key 'core' muscles. These muscles being the deeper stomach muscles and the gluteus maximus.

Avoid crunches , you can find these planks/pillars in Elite Soccer Power as part of a total strength and conditioning program.

In order for a soccer player to perform an effective plank/pillar they must contract the lower stomach muscles at the same time as the glute ("butt") muscles.

When both the lower stomach muscles and glute muscles work together they prevent the hip/ pelvis from rotating or tipping anteriorly (forward).

I'm sure you have heard of the term anterior pelvic tilt. The action of these two muscles working simultaneously prevents this from happening.

Soccer players that have to much of an anterior pelvic tilt tend to get both quad and hamstring strains or tears.

Too much of an anterior tilt forces one of the quad muscles to work overtime to replace the effort of the hip flexors. Over time this muscle gets strained or torn.

On the other side of the body there are problems with the hamstring muscles if there is too much of anterior tilt. In this situation the glutes are in effective as a major power muscles for speed and the hamstring muscles must compensate for them.

Again over time this leads to pulls and strains.

It is for these reasons I prefer the planks/pillars for abdominal strength.