ARE YOU STILL DOING HARMFUL, POINTLESS CRUNCHES?

Are crunches and sit-ups part of your exercise routine? Then, to be perfectly blunt, you are doing it wrong.

Here's a text from a hard-working client of mine. Her abs are “very noticeable” today, i.e. code for “My abs are sore.” We must have done a thousand crunches during our session, right?

Not quite. We actually did zero crunches. ZERO. You don't need to do crunches to achieve a flat stomach, improve your abs, or recovery from delivering a baby! If anything, crunches can even make “mummy tummy” worse, not to mention exacerbating other health issues like prolapse or back pain.

The key is engaging your deep core muscles, in particular your transversus abdominus. The “TvA” is a large, thick muscle that wraps around your torso similar to a corset. It is vital to your body's overall strength and performance. And working the TvA also helps close the split in the abdominal wall, known as diastasis recti split, that occurs from carrying a human being in your tummy for nine months.

So “E” and I focus on her true, deep core... and that's why she had “good sore” in her abdominals despite not even thinking about doing a crunch.