Ab Workouts and When to Avoid Them

Editor's Note:  When do you do your ab workouts? Christian Finn explains when is the worst time of the day to do your ab workouts.

Contrary to popular belief, hundreds of sit-ups won't make much difference to the appearance of your waist and stomach if your abs are hidden under a layer of fat.

Fat is stored energy. To get rid of the fat, you have to burn more energy (calories) than you eat on a regular basis.

What's more, a lot of bending exercise first thing in the morning puts a lot of stress on the discs in your back.

Why?

You’re taller when you wake up in the morning than when you go to bed at night.

That's because the discs in your back are hydrophilic (pronounced high-dro-fill-ick). In other words, they suck up water while you sleep.

First thing in the morning, these discs are like a balloon full of water. And, if you do a lot of bending (like ab workouts that involve sit-ups or touching your toes), there's a lot of stress on those discs. In fact, the stresses are three times higher than when you perform the same exercise two or three hours later.

That's one reason why putting on your socks in the morning feels a lot harder than taking them off at night.

"Researchers have documented the increased annulus stresses after a bout of bed rest," says Professor Stuart McGill, an expert in spine function and injury prevention and rehabilitation at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

"Yet many athletes and laypeople alike get up in the morning and perform spine stretches, sit-ups, and so on. This is the most dangerous time of day to undertake such activities."

Some evidence for this comes from research published in the journal Spine [1]. The study shows that controlling lumbar flexion in the morning is an effective way to reduce back pain.

A group of 85 subjects with persistent or recurring low back pain was assigned to one of two groups.

One group was told to restrict the amount of bending they did in the early morning. The control group received a "fake" treatment consisting of six exercises shown to be ineffective in reducing low back pain.

After six months, back pain was reduced in the group told to restrict bending activities in the early morning.

A follow-up study shows that participants who continued to restrict bending activities in the early morning enjoyed a further reduction in back pain [2].

The bottom line is that doing your ab workouts — or any type of exercise that involves a lot of bending — is one of the worst things you can do for your back first thing in the morning.

After you get up, just walking around helps to "squeeze" the fluid out and compress your spine. If you want to do your ab workouts early in the day, wait for an hour or two after getting out of bed. Your back will thank you for it.

Read other articles by Christian Finn

About the Author

Christian Finn is a Certified Personal Trainer and holds a masters degree with distinction in exercise science. He's lectured at a number of universities and private training organizations around the United Kingdom on fitness training, weight loss and the effective use of nutritional supplements. He writes extensively on the subject and his articles have been published in numerous magazines, leading industry journals and websites worldwide, including Men's Health, Men's Health Muscle, Fit Pro (April/May 2001), CAM magazine (February 2003), Image (January 1997), Zest (March 2004), and Body Life magazine (March/April 1997). He was also featured in the July 2004 issue of Muscle & Fitness (UK edition). His website, TheFactsAboutFitness.com, is dedicated to providing its members up-to-date, unbiased information and research on the world of fitness.

References

1. Snook, S.H., Webster, B.S., McGorry, R.W., Fogleman, M.T., & McCann, K.B. (1998). The reduction of chronic nonspecific low back pain through the control of early morning lumbar flexion. A randomized controlled trial. Spine, 23, 2601-2607
2. Snook, S.H., Webster, B.S., & McGorry, R.W. (2002). The reduction of chronic, nonspecific low back pain through the control of early morning lumbar flexion: 3-year follow-up. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 12, 13-19