#1 Worst Ab Exercise:
Never Do This – Do This Instead…

Why Crunches & Sit-Ups are Horrible for Your Back

Before discussing the specifics about why the crunch can be horrible for your back, let’s first look at the factors that keep the spine healthy and free of pain. First and foremost, a strong core is essential to a healthy back. Weak core muscles can increase the risk of lower back injury and pain. Strong core muscles reduce the risk for lower back pain by helping you to maintain correct posture and reduce strain on your spine. Poor posture can also result in back pain.

Unfortunately, crunches only work the surface muscles, not the deeper core muscles underneath. This is a problem for two reasons. First, this creates an imbalance between weak and strong muscles with the most important muscles—the inner ones—being overlooked. And while the outer muscles may look good, they do nothing to protect the stability or integrity of the spinal column. Second, strong outer muscles covering weak core muscles provide a false sense of security, significantly increasing the risk of back injury.

Crunches also increase the risk of back injury by reinforcing bad habits that result in poor posture. Some people have a tendency to try and flatten their spine against the floor or the bench when performing crunches. However, the spine is curved for a reason—forcing it into an unnatural position increases the risk for injury. Other bad crunch habits that can lead to poor posture include tucking the butt under or holding in the abs during the movement. All three of these common bad habits compromise the natural integrity of the spinal form.

Nerve damage is another potential consequence of too many crunches. The crunch movement puts an unhealthy strain on the back right at its weakest point, which coincidentally is thee section that contains the most nerves.  Damage to this weak area of the spine can result in serious, chronic pain that can last a lifetime and inhibit mobility and flexibility.

Lastly, crunches repeatedly flex and extend the spine, which is comprised of a series of interconnected discs. Much like any piece of complicated machinery, the spinal discs are subject to wear and tear—in other words, they are only able to support a certain number of bending motions over the course of a lifetime. Subjecting the spinal discs to the excessive wear and tear of crunches can reduce the ‘shelf life’ of spinal discs and result in nerve damage, a disc bulge or disc herniation, all of which are difficult to treat.

A review of the facts shows that indeed, crunches can be very bad for the back. While they do have some benefits, the risks of injury and back pain far outweighs any potential gains. If your goal is develop six-pack abdominals and strengthen your core, there are much better, more effective and safer options available.

If you’ve been crunching and doing sit-ups for years and have any degree of back pain don’t feel totally frustrated.  Rick’s new Fix My Back Pain program that utilizes the BR3 Method only takes 10-15 minutes per day and you can do it before or after your regular workouts. 

What Is The BR3 Method?

The “Traditional Back Pain Model” involves endless cycles of appointments, investigations, stretching and strengthening.

After having hundreds of Rick’s clients follow this model with minimal success, he needed to find a new model that breaks the traditional back pain model and moves clients from painful lower backs to a pain-free lumbar region.

This led to the creation of the BR3 Method which is based on one key concept: Reshaping your lower back from a painful lower back to a pain-free lumbar spine.

I know it sounds amazing but let me show you how you can do this for yourself…

Part 1: Internal Reshaping

The first part of the BR3 method involves using internal reshaping. You take simple steps to create an environment in your lower back so that you have a pain free lumbar region.

Part 2: External Reshaping

The second part of the BR3 method is reshaping your back from the outside. Now we are doing things that will continue the reshaping of the lower back, with a focus on what we can do to reshape it from the outside so that the lumbar region becomes pain free.

Part 3: Injury Specific Exercises

Now we have started the reshaping of the lower back from the inside and outside, the next step is to focus on injury specific exercises. Most therapists do all the same exercises no mater what the back injury is but this is not right. About 60% of the exercises are the same for all back injuries but the last 40% are injury specific and this is very important to note.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s update.  You’ll want to keep an eye on your email because we are going to show you exactly what’s included with the Fix My Back Pain system and tell you how you can win a free copy!
Get back to training hard,

Mike Westerdal & Rick Kaselj, MS
Fix My Back Pain
CriticalBench.com

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