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