Exercise of the Month: The Anti-Crunch

Crunches create back and neck strain. What’s more, they often create a poochy tummy. (When you are in the middle of a crunch, are your abdominal muscles bulging or sucked in?) To get flat abs, try the anti-crunch.

This is the mid-level version. The more advanced and therapeutic versions are below.

The key to this exercise is to keep your back and hips absolutely still. The legs are simply levers creating more resistance for your abdominal muscles.

1. Lie on your back with your neck and arms relaxed.
2. Bend one knee so the foot is on the floor and raise the other straight leg up toward the ceiling.
3. Don’t let your hips and back move. At all.
4. Lower the raised leg toward the floor, but stop before your hips shift or your heel reaches the floor, whichever comes first.
5. Raise the leg without tilting or shifting your pelvis or low back.
6. Keep breathing and repeat.


Advanced Anti-Crunch


1. Lie on your back with neck and arms relaxed. Breathe easily.
2. Raise both legs toward the ceiling.
3. Lower both straight legs toward the floor as far as you can without tilting, shifting or rotating your pelvis.
4. Raise and lower your legs as you breathe steadily.
5. Stop as soon as you cannot hold your stability.

For the therapeutic version, try the Easy Core Exercise in this article.

Core Muscles of the Hips

Core muscles are the new focus in the fitness industry. They protect the low back. Pilates strengthens the core. Advertisements promise a strong, sexy core if we buy their products. The problem is that the core can be illusive for the average person to find. That’s because the body has more than one core.

The Hellerwork Client Handbook compares the core to the inside of an apple. Core muscles are deep inside the body, right next to the bones. These muscles have more leverage and, when working properly, also stabilize the skeleton. When the core does not stabilize, joints are more prone to injury, the body is weaker, and other muscles get confused about what to do.

All muscle groups have superficial muscles and core muscles. Let’s delve into the core of the torso and core of the hips. Follow up articles will explain the core of the shoulders and the core of the neck.

The core of the torso is like a cylinder around your midsection, comprised of four muscle groups: the pelvic floor, transverse abdominus, multifidi, and diaphragm. The pelvic floor (actually a group of six muscles) creates the bottom of the cylinder. The transverse abdominus encompasses most of circumference as a girdle around the belly. The multifidi fibers, one to four inches long, fan out deep within the superstructure of the spine. The diaphragm caps the core; each breath turns this cylinder to an ever-changing, dynamic powerhouse.

When all parts of your torso core are strong and work together, you can lift more, bend over more, and do all kinds of movement with less risk of injury. The torso core is also an important base of support for your legs, arms, and neck.

The hip flexors lift your legs. If you rely on the rectus femoris, tensor fascia lata, and sartorius, you will be weaker and in less balance than if you use the core hip flexors, the psoas and iliacus, sometimes called the iliopsoas. These core muscles attach to the front and sides of the lumbar spine and deep inside the pelvic bowl. They have more leverage and bulk than the superficial muscles, but they also depend on stabilization from the torso core to work.

How do you know when you are accessing the deep hip flexors? One clue is that your pelvis does not rotate. Sitting in a chair, lift one leg. Does your low back shift or your hip lift up? If so, your iliacus and psoas are cheating and your low back is taking the brunt of the movement.

If you can hold your pelvis perfectly still and lift a leg, your torso and hip core are both getting stronger. It’s what makes a karate front kick so powerful. Even more challenging and strengthening is lifting both thighs with a stable pelvis, the action in the Pilates Teaser and yoga’s full boat pose (Navasana).

I gave readers an Easy Core Exercise in my previous post, Balance Between Abdominals and Back Muscles. Another way to wake up the core is with the Relax and Flow undulation. In both cases, the exercises use small, slow movements since the core is comprised of slow twitch muscle fibers. If you can do these exercises with complete pelvic stabilization, then you will be ready to take on more intermediate core exercises.

Core Exercise

I recently went to a Core Yoga class offered by my chiropractor, Jill Massengill, D.C. (http://www.straightchiropractors.com/jill.html) As I was driving to her studio, I wondered if it would be a “hard core” or “real core” type of class. Most people think that working the core should be strenuous (as in this slide show from the Mayo Clinic http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/core-strength/SM00047), but actually core muscles contract subtly. Feeling them is more an experience of turning down intensity rather than revving it up. I wasn’t surprised, but I was pleased, when Dr. Jill helped us slow down and sink into subtle sensation so that we could activate the real core.

The core consists of four muscle groups: 1) the diaphragm, 2) pelvic floor, 3) transverse abdominus, and 4) multifidi. They act like a cylinder to stabilize the low back and abdominal cavity. The diaphragm is the top of the cylinder, the pelvic floor the bottom, and the transverse abdominus and multifidi make the circle part.

Unlike muscles that get worked at the gym, the core is designed to work slowly and for an extended period of time. That’s why many people fail to find or develop their cores when using the exercises like the ones from the Mayo Clinic—and the first 25 Google entries I found.

After much searching, I found an article by Susie Hately-Aldous that describes the incongruity between what people think a core exercise should do and what the core actually is. You can read it at: http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Ultimate-Core-Exercise&id=716075.

I gave up my search before I could find a good core exercise for you from the internet. Here’s one that I teach my clients:
Engage Your Core by Using Your Feet, Part 1
1. Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet comfortably close to your buttocks.
2. Push down through your feet to push yourself “up,” as if you were getting “taller.”
3. Push with your heels only and notice how the line of force travels through your back.
4. Push with the balls of your feet and notice how the line of force travels through your front.
5. Push equally with the balls of your feet and your heels. Notice how much is on the inside and how much is on the outside arches.
6. Push evenly with your heels and balls with 60% weight on the inside arch, 40% outside.
7. Also try experimenting to find the push that travels up through your spine the most.

This is much easier than what most expect from a core exercise. But since so many of us are disconnected from our cores, we have to start by tuning into it.

Feel free to share your favorite core exercise.