Is there such a thing as a runner working his or her abs too much? I remember in a thread earlier someone said it can make your diaphragm hurt when you run hard- can anyone back this up? ANy other side effects? I just had a long injury layoff, so I went at the abs pretty hard just for something to do, and am wondering whether or not to keep up the same intensity.
I have a friend who does abs every day religiously, and he just had a race in which he was leading (it was a 3k) for a mile, then got severe cramps and had to drop out. His coach is making him cut down on the abs he does.
I never ever did any ab work. I just ran abut 2/3s of my workouts within 15 seconds of race pace, burned all the fat off my gut (there wasn't much to begin with), ate anything I wanted to, and had more than enough of the washboard effect.
YES!
Last year I was religous about doing a workout called awesome abs which was a total killer (15-20 minutes of hell), followed by only about 3-5 minutes of equivalent back exercises. You may think that Im exagerating but I strengthened my abs so much that I started to run all hunched over and it was hurting my back. I didnt work my lower back enough to hold myself up straight, and my abs were so tight they were pulling me down. I tried stretching out my abs but nothing worked until I completely gave up ab work and did a full summer of Yoga.
I guess there isnt too much ab work if you spend equal time strengthening the counter muscles in your back, but not many programs recomend this.
The thing that I found to be most effective for strenghening your abs and lower back equally is a drill we called four points or Fairview Belly torture that we did in High School. You start out facing down on the ground with your weight supported on your forearms and your toes, with your back as straight as possible, stay there for ten seconds, then raise youre right arm and keep your back parallell to the ground, then switch arms, then do your right leg and your left leg. Each of these would be three points. Hold each of the positions for about 10-15 seconds. Then the hard part is you lift your right arm and left leg at the same time, then switch. Throughout the whole exercise your back should be straight as a board and parallel to the ground, it gets pretty tough when you get down to two points. Do a couple sets of this and you'll definetly feel it not only in your abs but also in your back. Its a great exercise, hope you enjoy.
Yes, without a doubt...don't overdo it. I did 500 crunches daily for 2 years and definitely created a muscle imbalance with my lower back. I also believe it increased the incidents of sudden and severe sidestitches during races.
Bill Rogers once said that strengthening the abs was just creating another opportunity for muscle cramping.