Health and Exercise

Your abdominal muscles (often called the core muscles) help to support the upper body and spine. So, an important part of any plan to end back pain is strengthening the abdominal muscles.

The 6 abdominals. You have 6 ab muscles: the transversus abdominus that wraps around your torso,the external obliques and internal obliques which run down the side of your waist and most well known of all,the rectus abdominus, the famous six-pack down the middle of your abdomen.

In all, there are 6 abdominal muscles: 1-the rectus abdominus that lies lies close to the skin (also known as superficial, as opposed to a muscle that lies deeper). This is the six-pack muscle. 2-3-the external obliques, one on each side of your abdomen, also superficial,help to rotate the spine. They also help you to bend to one side (known as lateral flexion). 4-5-the internal obliques, one on each side of your abdomen, lying deeper than the external obliques. Also enable spine rotation and lateral flexion. 6-the transversus abdominus that lies deeper than the rectus abdominus, wrapping around your abdomen. Helps to support your back. In the diagram below, we cannot see the deeper muscles as they lie below the superficial muscles.

The muscles work together. The abdominal muscles are working when you bend forward,which is called spinal flexion. As you bend forward, the abdominal muscles are contracting while simultaneously, the back muscles are stretching. The rectus abdominus is called the spinal flexor. The erector spinae, which is the muscle running down the middle of your back,performs the opposite action. Developing strength and flexibility in the opposing sets of muscles is important.

Abdominal exercises – don’t hurt your back. The first exercise that comes to mind is sit ups, which may not be a good idea, particularly if you suffer from back pain. To reduce the chance of injury to your back, here are some guidelines: 1.Legs bent and close to your torso. Doing crunches with your legs bent will put less stress on your back than straight leg sit ups. Do bent leg raises rather than straight leg raises. 2.Back flat on the floor. The crunch is safer than a sit up, because your lower back is supported by the floor. 3.Don’t twist and flex your body at the same time. Choose an exercise that uses only one plane of movement, flexing or twisting, not both. For example, broomstick twists involve twisting your body while crunches flex your body.They only perform a movement in one plane. There are other exercises, like a twisting crunch, where you twist and flex at the same time. This is also known as using a compound plane of movement. 4.A smaller range of movement. Take note of this point, especially if you are beginning an exercise programme. The smaller the range of motion, the less your chance of hurting your back. Rather perform a crunch where you only lift your body 10 inches/25cm inches off the floor than a sit up where you go through a full range of motion from lying on your back to sitting up at 90 degrees.

Bent knee crunches. Lie on your back and bend your knees with your feet flat on the floor, close to your hips. Fold your hands across your chest, as illustrated, or put them behind your head.Tighten your abdominal muscles as you keep the lower back against the floor and raise your shoulder blades off the floor. Keep the position for 3 seconds, then lower yourself to the ground. After five repetitions, rest for a minute, then do another five. Every week, you should try to increase the number of repetitions. Your goal is to do ten repetitions in three sets.