May

Crunches are not the best way to strengthen your abs.

By admin

Hi Gang,

Here we are on the verge of another beautiful weekend in London, Ontario. Just one more group of athletes to train and I am off for two days! For those of you living south of the border have a great Memorial Day weekend! Be safe.

If you know me at all you know how I feel about crunches. I do feel guilty sometimes because I will admit there is something about the feeling you get after doing 30 good crunches – it feels like they are really working. Whereas after doing some of the more traditional stability exercise you feel tired all over your torso and maybe even into your lats. Well, enter Mike Reinold, Mike is a physiotherapist who in my opinion is also a genius. You should definitely check out his blog for great application of physio concepts and musculoskeletal biomechanics to athlete training. Anyway, Mike posted a blog this week which referred to a research article – (Mike’s blog post goes into great detail on it – I am just summarizing) that looked at electromyographic (EMG) data for various core training exercises using the stability ball versus traditional crunches and sit ups.

EMG data is obtained by placing electrodes (not the kind that zap you) over the various muscles and then measuring the muscle activation – more activation, more involvement in the exercise. Wanna know the winners? Here they are:

: SB Roll Out starting position.

Stability Ball Roll Outs

SB Pike starting position.

Stability Ball Pike

These two exercises were identified as having the most activation of the upper and lower regions of the rectus abdominus (six pack muscles), external and internal obliques and latissimus dorsi with minimal lumbar paraspinal and rectus femoris activity. In other words they give you the most work on your abs with the least stress on other areas. Genius! If you are the science-y type the article is called “Core muscle activation during swiss ball and traditional abdominal exercises” by Rafael F. Escamilla et al. It is in the Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physiotherapy 2010;40(5): 265-276.

Have a great weekend all!
Cheers,

Maria