What Abdominal Muscles Don't Do - The Missing Link

Did you know that your abdominal muscles have the most important function when you are standing?

The person in the red shirt in the photo is not using abdominal muscles. You can tell this by the upper body leaning and sagging backward, and the exaggerated inward curve of the lower spine. The overly arched bad posture is called swayback and hyperlordosis. It is a common overlooked cause of lower back pain.

Tightening the abdominal muscles does not fix the problem - using the abdominal muscles to change lower spine angle does. Hyperlordosis is not unchanging anatomy, it is slouching.

When you don't use your abdominal muscles when standing, your ribs lift up and the hip tilts forward in front. Your lower back increases in arch. You can see the over-arch in the photo above left, and the drawing below. The photo also shows not using upper back muscles and allowing rounding, covered in other Fitness Fixers. The weight of your upper body arching backward presses on your lower back, making it ache after long standing and walking. That is how abdominal muscles relate to back pain - by not deliberately using them to stop a painful bad posture.

When you use your abdominal muscles, they pull your ribs and hip closer in front, bending your spine forward enough to reduce the large arch down to neutral spine. Lower back pain from overarching stops as soon as you make this simple change. It does not take weeks of exercises.

The answer is not in strengthening the abdominal muscles. Many muscular people stand arched. Look at fitness magazines, where the weak, arched posture that causes so much back pain is common, even taught.

The answer is to *use* your abdominal muscles to pull your spine enough forward to reduce the arch and stand upright - first figure in the drawing at left. Tuck your hip under just enough to reduce a too large arch, and pull your upper body forward to straighter position, like starting an abdominal crunch or pelvic tilt standing up. Don't round your upper body, just pull it to an upright position.

Don't "suck in" or tighten your abs. Move your spine like moving any other body part. When you reduce the arch, your upper body weight shifts to your abdominal muscles and off your lower back.

Watch how other people stand and move, particularly in the gym. Are they using their abs to stand right when they get back off the floor from doing "abdominal exercise?" All the crunches in the world will not stop back pain if you do not know you need to voluntarily use your abs when standing so that you don't sag into a sloppy arch. That is the missing link - your abdominal muscles do not automatically support your back. You have to use them to move out of unhealthy position.

If you use your abdominal muscles to prevent your lower back from sagging into an arch, you will stop pain and get built-in, all-day, free abdominal exercise from all your standing, walking, and activities in an ordinary day.

• Explanation and photos of changing hyperlordosis to neutral spine - Using Abdominal Muscles is Not Tightening or Pressing Navel to Spine
• Short movie of changing hyperlordosis to neutral spine - Friday Fast Fitness - Neutral Spine in 5 Seconds and Fast Fitness - How to Feel Change to Neutral Spine
• Photos and descriptions of how and why preventing hyperlordosis prevents injury - Prevent Back Surgery.
• No need to squeeze gluteals either - Gluteal Muscles Myth - Shaking The Dog's Paw
  
• Get all the information in one handy training manual - The Ab Revolution.

Send in your photos and success stories of how you corrected your spine positioning and stopped pain in daily life and in the gym. I post them in Fitness Fixer Reader Inspiring Stories. Prizes for the best ones.

Labels: abdominal muscles, facet joints, fix pain, lordosis, lower back, neutral spine, posture, strength, upper back

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