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[Soybean]

Can someone tell me why my back hurts after doing a bunch of ab exercises? I thought maybe my form was bad, but I use machines now (one's an ab bench with no weights [just helps you do situps], and the other is a weight machine where you sit upright) and my back still hurts after a while. Is this bad? What am I doing wrong?


I'm trying to be healthier these days. Gym twice a week (I feel too busy to do more), brown rice instead of white rice, whole wheat bread instead white bread, meals with half vegetables (mostly boiled soy beans which are actually quite tasty) instead of 0-25% of a meal, fruits instead of candy, and avoiding as much processed food as possible.

I've been doing the gym since July of last year, but the diet change is pretty recent. I figure those are small steps I can take for now. Maybe later I'll move on to whole wheat pasta and other crap. I'll still eat pizza, buffalo wings, some candy, venti Caramel Macchiatos at Starbucks and various other things that I like, but only once in a while. I want to cut it down. Other people are more hardcore and cut that stuff out completely, but if I was at 12% body fat while eating poorly, surely improving my diet even a little bit will help. The goal is 6-8% body fat. But obviously it's not just about being fat (Asians seem to resist obesity well), but being healthy overall.

Any tips? What do you to stay healthy and live forever?

 

[Cauliflower of Love]

Is it your back, or you back muscles that hurt? It's possible you have weak back muscles, and after you tire out your abs(which are holding up your toros if you have weak back muscles) they are doing all the work and can't hang. Hence, they start getting tired too. Work on the back muscles.

 

[Soybean]

OK, thanks. That makes sense. Back muscles are in my workout, but I guess I'll pay more attention to it.

 

[Iceman]

What the heck is a "gime??"

 

[whytemyke]

Quickest thing to help with the diet is to cut out pop altogether, or only drink diet colas. But water is the best.

Yeah, i'd say it's the back muscles, man. You need balance as you work out, all things on your body. Don't build up your biceps without building up your triceps; quads without hamstrings; etc. Same holds true for abs, and those machines, while intending to make things easier on a workout, cripple you because they don't force you to work your back like normal situps would. Best ab workout you can use is situps... not crunches, just situps. It's the bench press of ab workouts. You can do trunk twists off a decline bench and whatnot for definition, but if you just do situps, you'll be doing fine.