crunches

[mad boxo]

How do i do crunches using my stomach but not my back cause every time i do them i feel nothing in my stomach and pain in my back.

[Douglas]

Try breathing out as you come up.

[Scrap]

Because your doing them wrong, bet youre doing them using your kneck to lift your body bend neck puts pressure on lower back. When doing crunches always look at the ceiling with shoulders back

[AdamGB]

yeah, look up at all times and lift from the shoulders. If you can't do them with your feet flat on the floor then let them lift slightly or just use a bar/some one standing on your feet.

Work the abs, if you focus on contracting them to make the movement you won't be using all of the tendons in your legs or hurting your spine etc.

[MichaelJA]

Also be sure to not have your hands on the back of your head. You can rest them on it if you want but just be sure you arent pulling your neck up with your hands but instead using only your stomach muscles to pull you up and I gurantee you after a lil while you will feel the burn.

[satori]

well said every1

also this works pretty well for me. wen ur lying down with ur knees up and stuff place your hands as far up your knees as they can go and start doin your crunches ( every1 means liek crunches as in half sit ups right? ) and as you pull yourself up kind of get your hands to slide on top of your knee.also you can try putting your legs up like you would sitting down and the floor is the chair.so your like holding your legs up...if you dont do that already :P

sorry if this is confusing :P
but yeah it works for me

satori

[chrisbird13]

There is a couple of things going on here, its not just incorrect technique.

Firstly what I like to do to isolate my abdominals better when working out is to do inclined sits. I find it a lot more difficult to allow my hip flexors to take over when doing them this way. Hip flexors are down the front and just to the outside of your thigh, and thats where you will feel a burn as well i am gussing? Or does back pain stop you before that. Out of choice I like to do crunchs hanging from a bar, BUT this is obviously a little dangerous as you can land on your head, and also they aren't very keen on you doing it in a gym! But if you have a chinning bar at home it is perfect,a nd you can even go the whole hog and get gravity boots!

Secondly you need to protect your back by increasing muscle size. nobody would work their bicep and not reciprocate on their tricep. Pretty much all muscles have a matching muscle which will do the complete opposite. For your abdominals these are your dorsals. Ideally for every sit-up/crunch you should match it with one dorsal raise. To do this effectively requires a special piece of equipment. But you can do them over the arm of a sofa if somebody holds your legs. Match this with flies to get a really good chest work out at the same time.

Finally mad boxo, you are at school right? Are you in the school cricket team? Do you bowl? Bowling in cricket can be a very lop sided action which can cause back problems (more so with pace bowlers). If this is the case then you should consider seeing an osteopath or chiropractor as they can sort out a lot of issues.

Hope this helps!!!

Chris

[Scrap]

Go to page 5 or 6 heading Scrap theres a couple there what will help your problem no end

[mad boxo]

k i got somthing in my stomach but still not alot and a bit or pain in my back