Six Poor Stomach Exercise Habits
Six Poor Stomach Exercise Habits
Like most things in life, there are right ways and quite a few wrong ways to workout, if your looking for a flatter midsection. Working out the wrong way can slow or stall all progress. Even worse it could lead to injury. Here are several tips to get you going in the right direction. Before you begin, make sure you check with your physician to make sure it’s safe for you to start doing exercise of any kind, including stomach exercises. Also be sure to warm up properly before your workouts.
Keep Your Knees Up
Keep your knees bent and centered, with your feet flat on the ground while doing crunches. Don’t let them drop to the side. This could cause a very painful back injury by compressing your vertebrae.
Sit-Ups
You probably don’t know this, but regular sit-ups don’t do much for the stomach muscles. Even when your form is perfect, the strain is more on the hips than the ab muscles. A lot of people tend to pull up with their arms too. This along with momentum pretty much makes this exercise pointless. The crunch is considered a much better alternative to sit-ups.
Straight Leg Lift
Here’s another traditional stomach exercise. This move tends to work the lower back more than any of the muscles in the stomach area. This one also puts stress on the lower back, which can lead to injury.
Too Many Reps
No more than fifty reps is needed for any stomach exercise. If your already doing fifty reps and not getting the results you are looking for, doing even more reps is not going to bring better results. You’d better off trying different exercises to see if something else might be more beneficial for you.
Sleeping
Lack of sleep is a huge problem for many of us. Believe it or not the results of our stomach exercise routines can vary with our sleep habits. Sleeping in the wrong position can leave you with back pain in the morning which of course will make working out your abs that much harder. By sleeping on your back with a pillow under your knees, you can avoid this type of back pain.
No Resistance
To be effective all stomach exercises need some type of resistance. Whether it comes from gravity, an exercise ball or a resistance band. Exercises like standing broom stick twists don’t provide any resistance and therefore don’t provide any real benefits to the midsection. Although this particular exercise is a great warm-up for the entire truck area.
Remember proper technique is crucial. These are just some tips to keep you from wasting your time and risking potential injury. Good luck with your workouts and get ready to say goodbye to that belly once and for all.
