Lets Talk About Abs (or, Muscle Activation)

When I was in the Army, I could do over 100 sit-ups in two minutes. I would almost always “max out” my score on sit-ups, and if I wanted to keep going I would usually end up around 120 or more. I was in relatively good shape, and I was young, but I wasn’t ever good enough to max out a run, or push ups. In fact, I really never liked working out, and even though I should have had “killer abs” the only semblance of a 6-pack you could see was barely visible inside my protruding rib cage, due to how skinny I was at that point. My comrade, a short and pudgy little fuck who hated me for my sit-ups, soon learned that I hated flutter kicks, and did them constantly in order to stick it to me. That shouldn’t have been a problem though since it is mainly an Ab exercises. What was the deal?

As I noted much later, it turns out the reason was I was not working my abs at all. I was working my hip flexors and lower back, complying with the “standards” of the exercise, but missing the point every time I would do sit-ups. Crunches were exactly the same, I though they were the easiest exercise in the world and I never understood why we did them. There are several different ways you can get you shoulders and head off the ground, and my bent up body was perfect for them.

it took a couple of months of Ab vacuums to develop strong enough abs to even do crunches, without letting my other muscles take over. This is called, muscle activation, when a muscle is so weak you don’t even know how to use it, and you have to practice with several low intensity exercises to get to the point that you can actually use them. I basically had to do this with my Glutes as well, and I’m becoming aware of more and more muscle groups as I use them and do more research. In reality, when I was in Buenos Aires I was trying to do frog crunches for a while, and I eventually just stopped because it didn’t feel like I was doing anything at all.

Fast forward to last week, when I was again getting into Ab exercises, after several weeks of doing planks (albeit, with bad form, but they still help), Ab vacuums, and exercise in general. I though, “hell, maybe that Vince Gironda guy knew something. I’ll give it another shot.” This time of course was much different than before. My abs were pretty sore, and I tried to use that soreness to see if I was activating them or not.

I pulled my head and shoulders forward.

Nothing.

I pulled my back of the ground.

nothing.

This isn’t right.

I remembered some Pilates stuff I had read about keeping the core tight, and tried to focus in on my abs and use only them, like the stomach vacuum, and just barely pulled myself off the ground.

Holy shit.

That was a whole different experience. For the first time in probably my whole life, I actually used my abs to do a crunch.

This just goes to show how serious, and important it is, to do both the correct exercises (sit-ups are terrible. Thanks, Army.), but also to make sure you are cognizant of which muscles you are supposed to be using, and doing everything correct to form. All those push ups and sit ups I did in high school and in the military were actually screwing me up. Along with many others whose stories I’ve come across lately, I did a bunch of bench press and curls, exercising my chest and arms while neglecting all the other muscle groups. I actively avoided back exercises, because since it was already messed up I was afraid of making it worse. Imagine my dismay 8 years later.

Learn from my example and understand what muscular imbalance is, and avoid it. Also, spend some time practicing on the muscles you need to be exercising, whether its your abs, or your Glutes, or some shoulder muscles that have been hijacked by the pectorals. It may take a lot of slow effort, but when you finally get to the point where you’re able to exercise them properly using the prescribed routines, you’ll be happy.

Alex

week 1 (again)

This has been a good week in terms of working out. As you could tell from my previous posts, I had been a bit run down the last few weeks. But i’ve stuck with it, and I am officially back on the horse! I’ve even made some break throughs.

I’ve gone on my walk and done my planks pretty consistently. I also added an extra “2 minute posture” exercise, which just consists of holding a correct or “perfect” posture for 2 minutes every day. Getting all 5 Ab vacuums in has been a battle, I’ve done them every day but inconsistently in how many times and such. I’m going to focus on it this week. In addition, I’ve put into better practice much of what I learned when I was away with the exercises and I’ve actually been improving on my list as well. I’ll add 4 new pages this week, “Core muscle exercises”, “back, shoulders, arms, and neck exercises”, “Glute/leg exercises”, and “stretches”, where I can keep a list of the exercises I use and change and modify things as I go. So far I’ve just been using a notebook and marking what works and what doesn’t work.

I noted 3 things of importance.

First, that the steps I had taken were really important, because it was essentially the activation and mobilization phase. i.e., when you let one muscle like your (hip flexors) take everything over and don’t use another muscle (like your abs), you literally can’t use those muscles because you can’t feel them, the overworked muscles take over immediately. So the months i’ve spent doing small exercises and not knowing if anything was happening did actually pay off. Activation is important. I’ll write another post about this.

Second, it became really hard to feel what posture was correct when i stopped working out. Thats because, I didn’t have my muscles that were sore to tell me when I was working them. For instance, my abs weren’t sore at all, so it was really hard to tell if I was keeping them tucked in an such when I was walking. After a few days of working out, it becomes much easier to remember because those muscles ache when you put the into action! This makes the walk and just putting your body in a correct posture much easier when you don’t have a mirror.

Finally, along the same lines the previous two, after focusing on one muscle group, it becomes much easier to see if an exercise is effective in working the muscle you want or another muscle. This has been important in my research on the core and Glute muscles, as some of the prescribed exercises can work the lower back or the quads instead of the muscles you want (or sometimes this happens when you do them incorrectly.)

The moral of the story is that consistency is very important, and although it burns, every time it does you’re reminded that you’re doing the right thing!

This week, I’ll be further exploring some Pilates and yoga stuff, as well as trying to figure out some better back/shoulder/neck exercises, and looking at breathing.

Have a good week, and get that back straight!
Alex

Understanding Postural Problems

So, I’ve decided to write a quick explanation of postural problems, Just to give a basic overview of how the bones and muscles work together and how things can go awry. I am of course, no a physical therapist and not any sort of professional, just someone who is very self interested in the topic and trying to synthesize what I’ve learned for other people out there.

To understand the body, there are a few things you’ll need to understand. In general, to be correct generally is highly dependent on several layers of Symmetry.  This means, you want one side of your body to be the same as the other. So, if you had one leg or arm much bigger than the other, this would seem very strange; it is the same concept with many other of your muscles. Most of them work in connection with another muscle or group of muscles, so if you work one muscle really hard, the other becomes lax and inactive and lets the stronger muscle do everything, making it even stronger. This becomes a vicious cycle which leads to what I call muscular imbalance, and can come to effect your bones and your posture, particularly your spine since it is so flexible.

This asymmetry happens across a plane typically, and there are 3 body planes that are generally described in general posture stuff. These are the Sagittal plane, Frontal Plane, and Transverse plane.

The Sagittal plane concerns muscular imbalances that happen on the sides of your body (the one arm much larger than the other would fit this category). This is the case with Scoliosis, where the spine makes a side to side “S” shape. If you have Scoliosis, I suggest you seek professional help.

The Transverse plane concerns the top and bottom halves of your bodies. I think most of the problems here are rotational, that is, if your pelvis is rotated, or if your femur bones are rotated, etc. I’m not quite sure on this one yet (I feel like I’m taking an anatomy class), but I am trying to learn because many of these problems seem to be side effects of kyphosis.

The Frontal plane is the one that concerns us the most, it is any imbalance or irregularity that occurs between the front and back of the body; excessive kyphosis, lordosis, and pelvic tilt all fall under it.

Photo Credit/deeper reading

Further, the terms that they use for muscular imbalance are Flexion and Extension. Flexion means a muscle is over worked, making it constantly tense, and pulling the rest of the body with it as it tightens up. Extension is the opposite, when a muscle is relaxed, and starts to extend and loosen up from lack of use, letting the body pull away from it.

Kyphosis is the backward bend in the back, generally the upper/thoracic/shoulder portion, with the curve pointing out of you back. It is normal to have a slight curve, but in our cases its generally excessive, pushing the arms and neck forward and giving the hunchback look. There are several causes, but in the postural case, it is usually due to Flexion of the chest and Extension of the upper back. That is to say, very strong chest muscles and weak back muscles. This could be from unbalanced exercise habits, or more likely from muscle creep after years of bad sitting, standing, and sleeping posture.

Lordosis is the forward bend in the back, generally in the lower/lumbar/belly portion, with the curve pointing out of the front. Again, it is normal to have a slight curve here, but in many cases it is also excessive, meaning the belly sticks out to give the appearance of a “beer-belly” and can be a huge source of several serious problems. Usually this means that there is Flexion of the lower back and Extension of the rectus abdominus (abs).

Pelvic Tilt is the way that your pelvis tilts. It should be generally neutral, meaning perpendicular to the ground, or very slightly forward. However, this the tilt can either be Anterior, meaning it points forward, or Posterior where it points back. I would say that its probably more often Anterior, which in some people leads to “swayback” or what I heard called “Donald Duck” posture, with your butt sticking out and your chest sticking out. But, with an excessive Kyphotic curve, it is also possible to have Posterior tilt, which leads to “flat back”, or not having any curvature in your lower spine, and that is also a problem.

Deciding which causes which, its kind of a chicken and egg situation, any of the above can cause any of the others, along with more problems. In the Lordotic-Kyphotic case, one influences the other as the body is trying to maintain its symmetry on the frontal plain.

Since I have a “Lordotic-Kyphotic” posture and an Anterior pelvic tilt, the majority of my advice will concern the muscles and exercises that are involved I will be generally be discussing those problems, but I will try to cover Posterior tilt as well, which is more or less just interchanging the muscles you stretch and exercise.

So, Lordotic-Kyphotic posture, like mine, usually means that the chest is strong while the shoulders/upper back muscles are weak and inactive. Since the chest is very tight, it pulls the back forward and works overtime, allowing the shoulders and back to relax and become inactive. This cycle continues until the curve is very large and the neck is pushed forward, and it will eventually probably lead to serious back problems if not corrected. Thus, the general idea is going to be to stretch the chest muscles while working the shoulder and back muscles.

In addition you see the opposite case with the lower back. The abs are often weak, while the back muscles are super strong and constantly tensed. One common cause of this, especially if you think your abs are strong, is that the hip-flexors often take over exercises designed for the abs. I used to do tons of sit-ups on my PT tests in the Army, I always maxed out my score. But it turns out I just have super strong hip-flexors that were taking over and letting my abs rest. This is why I no longer do crunches, instead I focus on exercises that isolate the abs and try to stretch my hip-flexors such as frog crunches and ab-vacuums.

For the Anterior pelvic tilt, you generally have a Flexion of the Hip-flexors and a Extension of the Gluteals. This means you tend to have really strong quads and hip-flexors (front legs and muscles that connect the legs tot to the upper body), while the glutes (butt and back leg muscles) are left to be inactive and stretched. So you wanna avoid doing exercises that are gonna reinforce this imbalance, instead doing stretches that are gonna release those muscles, and start building up the abdominal wall. One often neglected exercise that can provide additional help is Kegels. 

So, the main point in all this is to try and understand and apply this knowledge in terms of your specific case. Do you have excessive Lordosis of the Lumbar spine, or is it more a case of Flat Back? Do you have an Anterior or Posterior Pelvic tilt? Which muscles are over worked and which are under worked? Start by trying to find the answers to these questions so you can figure out what you need to exercise and what you need to stretch.

Hope it helps.
Alex