23/06/2014
If anyone happened to see the '30 day ab challenge' that has been going round recently and thinking of doing it/is currently doing it. PLEASE STOP NOW!!! Nobody has ever had to do an ever increasing amount of sit-ups to get visible abs.
When you perform a sit up (hip flexion), among others, you use a muscle called your psoas major which is part of your hip flexors.
Overdeveloped and tight hip flexors can cause the pelvis to tip forward and cause lower back pain.
If you already have tight psoas and you do a constantly increasing amount of sit-ups, you will shorten the distance between the pelvis and the rib cage. This effectively limits the amount of room in your body for your organs and a tight psoas with cause the organs to be pushed forwards.
If you've ever seen someone skinny with little body fat, yet there is a pot belly sticking out above the waist, this is an indication of a tight psoas major that is pulled forward from the back of the pelvis.
When the tight psoas is pulled towards the front of the body the organs don’t have anywhere to go but forward and the re**us abdominis (six pack muscle) goes with it - hence the pot belly.
If you want an effective 30 day ab challenge, start by cleaning up your diet and becoming more active. All forms of exercise burn calories so find something you enjoy and wont make an excuse to not do!
Concentrate on building some muscle! Maintaining muscle will in turn cause you to burn fat. It doesn't matter if it's doing ab work, running, walking or lifting weights so any 'challenge' that promises abs or any type of weight loss should involve maintaining muscle through resistance training and a variety of exercises working ALL muscle groups.
So doing a huge amount of sit ups and crunches WILL NOT create a flatter stomach, It will in fact cause your belly to protrude even more. See the picture below.
http://gallery.mailchimp.com/662d11f850de1674b1c6e0a56/images/ab27682b-f931-41ee-8754-25bee342c94c.jpg
