No more crunches pt. 2

 I will preface this post by stating that no, crunches will not kill you, nor will they give you cancer, diabetes, or stood up on a date. Again, there are better options that I will go over later. Training for spinal flexion is probably not the best idea in today's Western society for a couple of reasons.

First, many career jobs are spent at a computer or at a desk all day. Sitting loads of the lumbar erectors. The "core" muscle fibers contain more slow twitch fibers, which indicates that they are geared for endurance. Sitting for 3 hours is like a marathon for these muscles. In Stuart McGill's book Ultimate Back and Fitness, He states that we often form a hinge on the back where it can bend. One area of the back tissue is stiff, and the other is mobile (2010). Often times there is back pain where this hinge is. Crunch movements seem to promote some sort of hinge in the back. This is obviously not the function of the back musculature.

Bad sitting posture

Another study by Beach et al., showed that sitting in flexion for as little as an hour can cause passive tissue stiffness (2005). They then say that performing spinal flexion movements after sitting for long periods of time can add danger to an already dangerous sitting posture. That sounds a lot like 7 hours of sitting at work followed by some crunches and treadmill running to stay in shape. If you think that one's posture is bad during sitting, imagine what stress it is going through in an activity like jogging or running. Trust me, they will take the path of least resistance and head to the comfort zone in which they have been in all day. More on running in my next post.

More importantly crunches (and similar movements) do not train the true function of the core. This goes ESPECIALLY for athletes, and if you run or are training to run long distance go ahead and count yourself in as at least a wannabe athlete. While a crunch is not anywhere near the first exercises I teach someone, I have no problem with someone doing a CORRECT crunch. A good crunch does not allow abnormal neck flexion, flexing the spine from anywhere near the lumbar (low back) region, or rotating anywhere near the lumbar region. More on this later.

The most important reason why I believe we should edit crunches out of our training is because of our scientific knowledge of hypertrophy. I have discussed before that hypertrophy, or muscle growth either by increasing the size of the muscle fibers or by increasing the amount of muscle fibers (<--still highly debated) is what everybody is striving for in the gym. Even women, females, chicks, and girls strive for this without knowing it. EVERYBODY wants muscle, not fat. That does not mean you will be bulging out of your shirt, but hypertrophy stands for increased tone in the muscle. I know we all just want to tone up right?

In Supertraining, Dr. Mel Siff states that, "under conditions of rest or recovery, most of the energy is directed to protein synthesis, whereas most of it is devoted to muscle contraction during intense exercise. The lack of energy for protein growth and maintenance during heavy exercise apparently produces protein catabolism (breakdown), which stimulates protein supercompensation during later rest periods (2003). Basically, we break down muscle (protein) as we strength train, and we rebuild muscle proteins that were broken down during lifting as we rest. Supercompensation means that when we perceive a stress to a tissue, we will rebuild it to be stronger, bigger, or both. We must accommodate the past stress to the impending stress that the body thinks we will have in the future. Siff goes on to explain that, "hypertrophied muscle contains fewer sarcoplasmic organelles, myofibrils, and mitochondria, so that the increased diameter of muscle fibers is due largely to an increase in the volume of sarcoplasm (2003)". Increased diameter sounds a lot like that six pack, flat stomach, or big chest that we have striving for. That paragraph was so boring that I think I will insert a picture:

Even Leonardo Da Vinci knew what hypertrophy and muscles were

So know that we know how a muscle grows, lets go ahead and apply it to the abdominal musculature. Normally at my gym I see people doing multiple sets of some variation of crunches without weights. I can make an educated guess that they don't have a six pack. People assume that because they feel a burn in the muscle, that a six pack or flat stomach will emerge. People assume that a burning muscle will "burn" away that fat that is over it. Nice concept, but it could not be any farther from science.

To increase muscle size, we must increase resistance to the given muscle. This means that we must add weight. Lets say that doing 3 sets of 30 crunches has now become easy to you. Whats next? Add more crunches or crunch like movements? Sounds like more repetition. Ah yes, lets add some weight. Why not, we add weight to just about every other exercise. We also know that increasing resistance will increase muscle size right? Increasing muscle size will allow us to tone right? Yes. Should we add weight while FLEXING the spine forward? No. Our core muscles are not like the extremity muscles. They serve a different purpose of transferring load from legs to arms (done in almost every sport and compound movement), holding the spine erect, protecting our vital organs etc...

You might be able to do a correct crunch and not feel any neck or back pain. Driving a car can be dangerous, eating meat can be dangerous, and drinking alcohol can be dangerous but we still do these things. They will not kill you, but I would highly suggest that for the normal gym goer, that there are better options out there for you. Before a crunch, one must exhibit a prerequisite movement before one can safely say that that crunch will benefit more than anything else. Just because you read them in a magazine routine or that Jillian Michaels advocates them does not mean they are good for you ( See my connotation and denotation post).

Before I list some recommended exercises, I will say that every person has individual needs. Yes, you are special. Depending on your body type, appendage lengths, muscle fiber type, job, height, hobbies, sports, previous injuries, and pain, one can begin to program some exercises that will be most beneficial to you. Please ask any questions if you have any. These are not progressions and some might be easier than others. I have my own way of teaching these which I will try to outline under the picture. Nothing substitutes a trainer with keen eyes for form, goal of exercise, and progression.


Longer video, but watch, listen, learn, and practice. Gray Cook is the man.


Emphasize scapula motion and spine stiffness. Keep shoulders back and the lat muscle engaged.




Funny mustache but I can tell he has read Stuart Mcgill. I don't know about that cat camel stretch but try the birddog.


The Mcgill curl up. Yes this is a safe alternative to a crunch.




Siff, Mel. (2003). Supertraining. Denver, CO.

McGill, Stuart. (2010). Ultimate back and fitness. Waterloo, Ontario, Canada: Wabuno Publishers.

Beach, T, Parkinson, R, Stothart, P, & Callaghan, J. (2005). Effects of prolonged sitting on the passive flexion stiffness of the in vivo lumbar spine. The Spine Journal, (5), 145-154.