St Pete Fitness & Weight loss
⁉️Crunches and sit ups hurt my back and neck, what should I do ⁉️
Sound familiar? You are not alone. As St Pete’s top personal trainer fitness and weight loss expert for men and women over 50, I hear this almost every day.
So, it’s the time of year where people are focused on their stomachs, getting “flat abs” or, in general, making their midsections look their absolute best. They come flooding into our fitness & weight loss programs on a mission.
My theme for June is “restore your core” and this month, I am going to share with you the secrets that have our personal training clients and group fitness and weight loss members achieving their best stomachs ever. From the best and worst exercises to exercise demos, full workouts and what foods to eat for your flattest stomach ever!
Today I want to talk to you about why our private personal training clients and group fitness members NEVER do crunches or sit ups and what we do instead to burn more fat and shape flat stomachs in less time!
Situps are a staple in a class I attend but I always avoid them and substitute other exercises. While sit-ups may seem like a great exercise to work your stomach they actually are one we never do and encourage our clients to avoid.
Here’s the deal …… crunches and situps can actually be harmful and they aren’t the best way to get a lean, strong core! Yep, I said it and I’ve caught an awful lot of flack for it over the years.
Actually, doing too many crunches are terrible for your neck and back, especially if you’re already spending most of your day sitting at a desk, in a car, or on your phone.
See, we spend most of our time in a hunched over, seated position. This causes our hip flexors and muscles and front of our bodies (anterior muscles) to get tight as well as our necks.
Because these muscles are already tight, you end up recruiting your hips and back instead of your stomach while doing crunches or sit ups or you end up straining your neck due to weak upper back and core muscles. More often than not, this creates pain and injury.
So, after you’ve been sitting all day, the last thing you want to do is head to your workout and do more of something that’s likely going to aggravate your back and neck, creating muscle imbalances and actually even making your stomach look thicker.
Thicker? Wait? What?
Although crunches aren’t all that effective, the time they spend actually working abs is spent working the part that ADDS MUSCLE… The part of the stomach crunches and pushups work are the ones that bend your spine called your rectus abdominals and don’t work, or barely work the muscles that “suck your stomach in” called your “transverse”.
Simply put, doing hundreds of sit ups and/or crunches can end up giving you a thicker waistline, not a thinner one on top of causing muscle imbalances and injuries.
For most of you reading this, my guess is you want a lean flat stomach not a thick, bulky one.
So, instead of wasting time doing countless crunches or sit ups, substitute them for exercises like planks, side planks, russian twists and compound exercises like pushups, burpees or squat presses.
The great thing is these exercises don’t just work your core muscles (to give you a flat, tight stomach) they also work your back, shoulders, and legs so you burn more calories in less time and get even more out of your workout.
Not only will you increase calorie burn to get more out of your workout, but you also will add lean muscle and functional strength…and that muscle increases your metabolism so you burn even more calories at rest on top of helping to eliminate a lot of the aches and pains that most people accept as “part of getting older”.
MORE FROM FAT LOSS U: How To Speed Up Your Metabolism in 5 Simple Steps
Now that’s training smarter not more!
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