Doing curl-ups? It's time you did it correctly

Doing curl-ups? It's time you do it correctly.

In recent years, exercise to strengthen the abdominal muscles has become an integral part of any fitness training. The reasons are well-known and known to everyone: from improving sports performance among professional or amateur athletes to stabilizing the lower back to prevent back pain, and of course - the well-known aspiration to achieve a firmer appearance of the abdominal zone

Over the years, the abdominal squat exercise has received a large number of versions, which have developed on the one hand out of a desire to achieve an increased contraction of the abdominal muscles, and on the other hand out of fear of performing it incorrectly, which may cause an increased load on the lower back area. Among the different versions, you can find a change in the position of the legs - raised in the air or with support, performing with bent or straight knees to obtain an increased contraction of the abdominal muscles, or a change in the position of the pelvis, the purpose of which is to "flatten" the arch of the lower back, in an attempt to regulate the loads that act on the lower back.

And indeed, it seemed that the various versions sometimes took the execution of the exercise too seriously. Studies show that even if sometimes doing sit-ups causes back pain, this is not necessarily a sign of back damage (yes, even when it comes to high loads). In addition, performing various squats exercises, whether by increasing the resistance with a barbell or by completing a large number of repetitions, will never lead to a toned structure of the abdomen without a decrease in fat percentage.

The basic

Starting position: knees bent, feet placed on the floor while maintaining a neutral arch of the lower back.

The performance that challenges the core muscles

Hip bent at 90 degrees, knees at 90 degrees, feet in the air. Neutral arch of the lower back.

The performance that challenges the longitudinal muscle of the stomach

Hip and knee at 90 degrees, low heels on a bench or ball. Pin or "carpet" the lower back as much as possible toward the floor