crunches

I have often written about the elegance of people in bygone years. The women, sometimes corseted, show striking deportment.

This young woman shows wonderful alignment and poise in an age when corsets were commonly worn. Corsets encouraged abdominal support, a tall straight spine, and the behind behind. Pinterest

The excesses of nineteenth-century fashion understandably gave corsets a bad name. Extreme tight lacing had some terrible effects, imposing some drastic anatomical remodeling:

The stomach and liver are crammed down, with the ribs compressing into drooping S-loops. The neural spines of each vertebra, the little projections that stick up from the central body of each bone, are also pushed out of place. Normally they stack nicely one atop the other in a neat midline ridge, but in long-term corset wearers these spindles of bone jut to this side or that.

Science writer Brian Switek in Skeleton Keys: The Secret Life of Bone.

The extremes of nineteenth century corsetry had unhealthy effects, including restricting breathing and digestion (left). Wikimedia

The majority of people nowadays enjoy the freedom of not wearing a corset, and are understandably determined never to return there. However, some kinds of external corset, well chosen and used judiciously, can have protective benefits for the lower back area. They can also serve as a training tool for developing a stronger, healthier, inner corset. Let’s consider this in more detail.

External corsets can offer protection in some contexts

Belts and corsets are often worn by manual workers—for lifting heavy goods at Home Depot, for example. The extra stability they give the trunk can be protective in awkward maneuvers, when workers are tired, if they have previous injuries, or are vulnerable due to a weak “inner corset.” 

A corset provides extra protection for the lumbar spine, which, unlike the thoracic spine, is not protected by the architecture of the ribcage. Ninelife.uk

Another common use for external corsets is in weight lifting. In this case, should the natural inner corset fail and the considerable weight over challenge the lifter, a resultant twist or buckle of the spine could cause serious injury. The corset will guard against this and also help the lifter to maintain length and space in the lumbar area despite the compressive force from the weights. 

   
A weightlifter protects his lower back with a belt. Unsplash

External corsets can be useful training aids

A corset or belt can give a feeling of strength and stability that you want your own muscles to provide. A corset or belt can be used as a reminder and a training tool. External corsets can be used as supplements to your own inner corset musculature, not instead of it, when bending, lifting and carrying.

Healthy posture trains your  inner corset

Healthy posture naturally strengthens your inner corset. Poor posture will lead you to slump and collapse your inner corset, or sway and make your back muscles overwork and tighten. Either way, your inner corset is sidelined, making you more vulnerable to injury and degenerative spinal conditions.

Some traditional cultures wear external corsets

Some societies have integrated corsets into their traditional dress. Members of the Dinka tribe from Southern Sudan, Africa, wear surprisingly rigid corsets with metal ribbing and beading to show their status. These are worn day and night for years. The corsets allow no appreciable flexion, extension, side-bending, or twisting, yet the excellent physique of the young men and women who wear them is testimony to how little spinal movement may be necessary to preserve good health.

A member of the Dinka tribe wearing a corset. Note that the L5-S1 area is allowed to assume its normal curvature.

Another corset-like garment, this time from East Asia, is the Japanese obi, or sash, worn in various styles with different types of kimonos. Nowadays they are mainly reserved for bridal wear. Over the centuries, owing to their increasing ornamental width and stiffness, other more functional belts would be tied underneath to close the kimono.

A woman tying the obi of a geisha in the 1890s. Wikimedia

Gokhale Method students can make use of corsets

Some of our students have explored wearing corsets. Alumna Fatimah has experimented with very different types of corsets. She tells us that in the old days in Java the kemben, an item of traditional clothing she knows from her Indonesian heritage, was similar in function to the modern bustier, and was worn with a sarong (wrap around skirt). However, nowadays most people would wear a sarong with a corset over it, and a kebaya (longer blouse/jacket, sheer and often lacy) on top. Fatimah remembers her grandmother wrapping herself in a sash that acted as a corset over her sarong, with a long straight kebaya on top.

A woman wearing a kemben, the traditional Indonesian female torso wrap, circa 1900.
The traditional kemben is worn by wrapping a piece of cloth around the torso, folding and securing the edge, tying it with binding, and then covering it with a sash or angkin around the abdomen. Today, there are also tight-fitting and tailored kemben secured using buttons, straps, or zippers similar to the Western corset. Wikimedia

Modern shapewear as a corset

Modern shapewear is, as the name suggests, usually worn to achieve a smooth and shapely body contour—in the case of the corset, while reducing the waist. The sensation of wearing it can provide a reminder to engage the deep abdominal muscles. Fatimah discovered a shapewear corset via her hairdresser, who uses it while working to prevent back pain. Fatimah comments:

If I wear it high, covering my lower ribs, it reminds me to engage my rib anchor, keeping my front ribs down and flush with my torso and avoiding swaying my back. I actually don’t find it comfortable to wear for long periods, so I’m getting good at remembering to use my rib anchor without it!

 A SKIMS corset, a modern piece of shapewear in a style made popular by Kim Kardashian. Pinterest

Ideally, we all have a strong, natural inner corset

Since our first human ancestors stood upright some 5–7 million years ago, we have acquired not only a J-spine but also a strong matrix of tissues designed to support and protect it. (You can read more about spine shape here.) We evolved perfectly to do this. Unfortunately, about one hundred years ago, our industrialized culture took a wrong turn in notions about healthy posture. Going forward into modern times, we have exported a distorted view of human posture to much of the world through our design, fashion, and manufacturing. This unraveling of global postural health and traditions is explained in more detail in my book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back.

Fortunately, there remain traditional societies where healthy, pain-free posture is still intact, and they provide precious role models for us to learn from. The Gokhale Method® in-person Foundations and Pop-up courses, and our online Elements course, teaches how to stand, bend, walk, and even sit as these people do. The inner corset is also explained in detail in my book 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back.

The muscles of the inner corset include the deep intrinsic back muscles, the abdominis transversus, and the obliques. 

This young mother in Burkina Faso is using her inner corset to remain tall, stable, and relaxed while carrying on her head with her baby on her back. Headloading, done well, can encourage the inner corset to engage and the spine to align. Traditional posture principles really work!  

Strengthening your inner corset

There are few of us who can’t do without some attention to our inner corset. What you don’t want to do is common ab exercises such as the aptly named crunches, which squish your discs and crunch your spine, or, worse, sit-ups. You can read more about ab exercises here.

We recommend you start by learning to use your rib anchor, an ingredient of your inner corset, which will prevent you from swaying and compressing your lumbar area. You can watch our free rib anchor video here. 
If you would like guidance on any aspect of your posture, including ways to cultivate your inner corset and protect your back, consider scheduling an Initial Consultation, online or in person, with a Gokhale Method teacher.

This is our second blog post in the series where we put popular exercises under scrutiny to examine how they stack up—or not—against the principles of healthy posture. Here we are looking at crunches, a common abdominal exercise.

Crunches are often seen as a better targeted and safer 
abdominal exercise than sit-ups—but there is still a downside.

Crunches are done lying down on the floor, face up, knees bent with feet on the floor, and with the hands placed behind or to the side of the head. They involve using the muscles of the rectus abdominis and the obliques to repeatedly raise and lower the upper body. 

Crunches are well named—they crunch your discs and crunch your nerves. Lifting the weight of the head—which at around 11 lb. or 5 kg is the weight of an average bowling ball—can put considerable strain on your neck and threaten its delicate structures. It also encourages rounding of the back and shoulders, as you can see in the above photo. We recommend against this exercise.

Doing poorly designed exercises and overtraining the “six-pack” muscles will encourage a tucked pelvis
and a rounded upper spine. Freepik

Why are crunches so popular?

People in our culture are conditioned to feel more attractive when they have a flat stomach and an impressive six-pack, and so may turn to all manner of treatments, diet regimens, and abdominal exercises to target this area. People who have experienced an episode of debilitating back pain also want, quite understandably, to strengthen their abs and core in order to protect their back. 

Do most people need to strengthen their abs?

   
Parking the pelvis forward is a common postural habit that pushes into the groins and compresses the lower back. It indicates that the deep abdominal muscles are not engaged and prevents them from fulfilling their postural role. Freepik

Most people in our culture sit, stand, bend, and walk in ways that actually discourage their abdominal muscles from working in their day-to-day lives. Those who either arch or round their backs are holding themselves upright with their back muscles or stressing their joints. With these poor posture habits the “inner corset” (deep muscles of the abdomen and lower back) is not recruited to perform its natural role and becomes progressively weaker. 

This woman in Burkina Faso and man in Brazil use their inner corset in their everyday tasks.

Learning healthy posture as taught in our online Elements course and in-person Gokhale [Go-clay]Method Foundations Course holistically addresses this problem. In the courses we teach specific, well-chosen exercises designed to jump-start weak muscles and awaken your inner corset. Some of these are illustrated in Appendix 1 of my book 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back. 

Are crunches a safer exercise than sit-ups?

Crunches are often regarded as a safer and better choice of abdominal exercise than sit-ups. And they are. The Canadian Armed Forces discontinued the use of sit-ups in training and physical-fitness tests due to the large numbers of injuries caused to their personnel. The U.S. military also has a plan to phase them out by 2021. Stuart McGill, Professor of Spine Biomechanics at the University of Waterloo in Canada and a leading researcher on the subject, points to numerous studies that show that repeated sit-ups, which load the discs in a particularly dangerous direction, cause bulging, sequestrated, and herniated discs as well as spinal nerve damage. 

Neither of these people doing crunches have healthy form. Their necks are doing too much, and the man is also tucking his pelvis. Crello

Gym instructors often prefer crunches over sit-ups because they are safer and result in less tension in the psoas (hip flexors). But are they safe enough? 

In our view, classic rounded crunches are still a risky, disc-compressing exercise which encourage tension in the groin, while also training the body in poor postural form (tucking the pelvis and rounding the upper back and neck).

Doing a crunch twisting the head towards the knee encourages the neck to do too much and the pelvis to tuck. Crello

Rounded crunches are sometimes done with a twist at the waist to work the abs more obliquely. This is often done by bringing up the entire upper body and reaching one elbow towards the knee of the opposite leg. 

Effective ab exercises that are healthy for your posture

There are healthy alternatives to crunches that give your abdominal muscles a good workout! 

Our healthy and posture-positive version of this exercise keeps the head supported in the hands. The arm on the side to which you are turning continues to be supported on the ground. You can watch Gokhale Method Fitness teacher Eric Fernandez performing the exercise in this video. You will see that he maintains his spinal alignment throughout the exercise, rather than tucking and rounding his torso. 

When doing this exercise:

• Support your head in your hands and relax your neck 
• Rest your upper arm on the floor as you turn towards it, lifting the opposite arm and shoulder from the floor
• Do not pull your head forward
• Do not tuck your pelvis
• Aim for small, smooth, accurate movements

If your abdominal muscles are weak or you are currently or intermittently experiencing back pain, then we recommend that you start with a less challenging exercise. To correctly identify and safely bring your abdominal obliques and other upper abdominal muscles to a healthy baseline tone, we recommend first watching this Gokhale Method rib anchor exercise video, and then learning to use your inner corset. The inner corset is explained in detail in 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back. 

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Read our Home Exercises Part 1 blog post on Cobra here.

The abdominal crunch, though ubiquitous, is actually quite detrimental to the spinal discs and nerves. Better to find an abdominal exercise which respects and protects the spine! Image courtesy Jonathan Borba on Unsplash.

Happy Holidays! The dawning of a new year is a time when many people make efforts to establish new habits, many of them body-related. With the desire to improve ourselves often comes a (sometimes unhealthy) heightened awareness of how our bodies and their shapes appear to others. This is particularly true of abdominal muscles. Photoshopped, unrealistic images of sculpted torsos plaster newsstand covers every January. Crunches are the most commonly recommended exercise for increasing ab strength, often with six-packs as the goal. But do six-packs actually indicate broad-spectrum ab strength? What is actually the best ab exercise —  something protective of our backs rather than detrimental to our spinal health? How can we balance form with function?

The Gokhale Method describes two important sets of abdominal muscles that keep us healthy: the “rib anchor” and the “inner corset.” The rib anchor helps prevent the lower back from arching. The inner corset protects the back from a variety of compressive threats — weight-bearing, impact, and vibration, as well as any distortion in shape like arching, rounding, or twisting. The inner corset includes the rib anchor plus a more extensive set of deep abdominal and back muscles.  

Well-designed ab exercises would:

• tone the deeper layers of the abdominal wall that constitute the rib anchor and inner corset muscles, while de-emphasizing the shallower rectus abdominis (six-pack) muscle 

• put no unhealthy stress on your neck, spinal discs, or spinal nerves

• take as little time out of your day as possible

Here, my daughter Monisha, a high-level athlete, demonstrates how rib anchor and inner corset activation can make all the difference in pull-up form.

Now for some specific measures to strengthen the rib anchor and inner corset muscles. Based on how much time they take out of your day, we will divide them into 3 tiers: 

Tier 1: Everyday activities
These strengthening measures are fully integrated into your everyday activities. They don’t take any time at all out of your day. Your daily activities need to be vigorous enough that they would ordinarily stress your spine. However, by activating the rib anchor and/or the inner corset every time your spine would get stressed, you not only prevent damage — you get your ab exercise as well. Think about this approach like “on-the-job training.” The advantages are numerous:

• You strengthen the various components of your “brace” or “inner corset” in exactly the proportion they need to be strong. No overdevelopment of the six-pack (this is common and tucks the pelvis); no neglecting the deeper abdominal and back muscles (this is also common and leaves the area weak and unprotected).

• There’s no threat or damage to your spinal discs, nerves, or neck in this approach. Compare this with the threat and damage caused by crunches, which unfortunately remain the most popular ab workout in gym routines. 

• It takes no time! It takes no longer to lift well (with the inner corset engaged) than it takes to lift poorly. It takes no longer to twist well (with the inner corset engaged) than it takes to twist poorly. And it takes no longer to run well (with the inner corset engaged) than it takes to bounce around willy nilly and destroy your discs and nerves.

Proper abdominal engagement is crucial for safe running technique — and it doesn’t necessarily look like a six-pack. Image courtesy nappy on Pexels.

Tier 2: Modified activities
These ab strengthening measures are slightly contrived (but not awkward) ways of modifying everyday postures and ways of moving to get our ab exercise needs taken care of. This is the next best choice if your everyday activities don’t quite cover your exercise needs.  As many of us sit behind computers for larger and larger fractions of the day, I’ve begun recommending engaging the inner corset 10% whenever a student can remember to do so. This is the extent to which these muscles would have been recruited in sitting were they primed by carrying weights as much as our hunter-gatherer ancestors clearly did.

Laptops and other computers are wonderful tools, but they also encourage us to be passive and increasingly sink into ourselves over the course of a work day. Inner corset and rib anchor activation, even 10%, can help us learn to “wake up” our deeper abdominal muscles. Image courtesy Brooke Cagle on Unsplash.

Tier 3: Supplemental exercises
Doing supplemental exercises and therapies to strengthen the abs. These take time. To be efficient, I recommend whole-body exercises, yoga poses, or dance sequences that enable you to do several exercises in parallel. Some of my faves are chair pose, samba, and TRX planks.

Samba is a fun, social, sensual way to actively engage and strengthen the inner corset. It’s never too soon to start getting ready for Carnaval! Original image courtesy PlidaoUrbenia on Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 2.5.

Helping it stick
Do you find it difficult to fit posture work into your daily schedule, or struggle to form new habits? (This is part of being human!) I’m excited to announce our new Gokhale Exercise Challenge, a live-streamed, daily 15-minute exercise session I’ll be leading personally at 7:00am Pacific / 10:00am Eastern every morning from January 1, 2020 through January 21, 2020. This enrichment of our Online University content is free for all Online University members.

If you are an alum of our Foundations Course or Pop-up Course and haven’t yet enrolled in our Online University, join today by calling 1-888-557-6788 to receive a special discount on your annual membership between now and January 8, 2020.

Q. What if I miss a session or live in a completely different time zone — can I still participate?
A. Yes! If this time slot doesn’t suit you, you can watch each session at your convenience for up to 24 hours after the live session.

Q. I’m not in great shape. Is this accessible to me?
A. Absolutely! All Gokhale Method alumni at any level of fitness will benefit from these exercises.

I look forward to starting the New Year with you!

Opinions on what constitutes a pelvic problem abound. The term "forward pelvis" with its negative connotation, has come to be used for an assortment of pelvic / lumbar architectures, some of which, according to the Gokhale Method - are good, and some bad. 

Have you been diagnosed with “forward pelvis” (aka “anterior pelvic tilt”)? If so, you may be concerned about the Gokhale Method recommendation to antevert your pelvis, thinking that this will exacerbate the problem.

Your confusion is not unique. Very few professionals, whether doctors, trainers, or wellness practitioners, differentiate between “forward pelvis / anterior pelvic tilt” and healthy pelvic anteversion. This can lead to poor recommendations like tucking your pelvis or doing crunches.

A common approach to fixing pelvic problems in modern times is the pelvic tuck and crunches, both of which carry significant risks. The Gokhale Method has different (and we believe better) solutions to various pelvic or lumbar issues that students may have. 

Anterior rotation of the pelvis on its own is not the problem. It’s where else you rotate and how that marks the critical difference between a happy and an unhappy spine.

“Forward pelvis” is vague terminology that is used to describe a variety of spinal architectures that share the common (and not very revealing) element that the pelvis is inclined forward relative to the ground. The term does not distinguish between curves that occur high in the lumbar spine, which are liable to cause pain and dysfunction, and the curve that happens at L5-S1 which is normal and healthy.

Healthy pelvic anteversion occurs only between the lowest of the free vertebrae in a human spine (known as L5), and the top of the sacrum (known as S1). If the L5-S1 angle is intact, it’s possible to stack the entire vertebral column with little effort.

With a "Forward pelvis”, the rotation is not necessarily isolated at L5-S1—in fact, there may be no rotation at all at that point—and usually there is rotation at one or more adjacent vertebrae.
 

In the Gokhale Method Foundations course, students work with a teacher to find a suitably shaped wedge to support their particular L5-S1 architecture. Once students learn how to sit with an appropriately rotated pelvis, they are often surprised by how effortlessly they can now remain upright. With the pelvis properly anteverted, the rest of the spine stacks and the back muscles can actually relax.

Student Travis Dunn’s Before and After sitting pictures. Taking the Gokhale Method Foundations course helped him find a sweet spot that got rid of his longstanding back problem.

Even though this is how you sat naturally when you were quite small, it can take some coaching to release the muscles previously needed to work to hold you upright!

Nathan White (left), 1993, and Monisha White (right), 1996, displaying the natural and healthy pelvic anteversion shared by all young children. Notice that their pelvises tip forward in isolation from the lumbar spine. 

What is unhealthy about most instances of “forward pelvis”? Let take a look at the physiology of the spine. Your vertebrae are cylindrical bones and in between each vertebra is an equally cylindrical disc that functions as a shock absorber.

Your spinal discs are shock absorbers. Most spinal discs are cylindrical in shape.

The L5-S1 disc at the bottom of the stack is unique among spinal discs in being wedge-shaped, with the broad edge of the wedge toward the front of the body. If you arch the spine, each cylindrical disc is forced into a wedge shape. Likewise, if the proper anteversion is not achieved at L5-S1, and there is some degree of tucking of the pelvis, the naturally wedge-shaped L5-S1 disc gets pinched into a more cylindrical form. After years of distorting discs in this way, you can expect degeneration, loss of disc height, and potential impingement of the corresponding spinal nerves.

       
When the cylindrical shape of the upper lumbar discs is not respected (left), or the wedge shape of the L5-S1 disc is not respected, there is compression, disc degeneration, and eventually pain and dysfunction.

With a return to correct anteversion of the pelvis (and a well-stacked spine), the cylindrical lumbar discs fit cleanly between the cylindrical vertebrae, and the wedge-shaped L5-S1 disc is given its own wedge-shaped space to call home. In this arrangement, the intervertebral discs can properly perform their shock absorber function while maintaining plenty of room for the segmental nerves to exit without compromise.

        
Well aligned vertebrae allow the spinal discs to perform their shock-absorbing function without compromise.

If you suffer from the variant of “forward pelvis” that includes problematic positioning of higher lumbar vertebrae, this can be caused by several things, each of which requires a different solution. If you are tensing the erector spine muscles (thrusting the buttocks backward or the chest forward), then the solution is to implement techniques to relax those muscles. Massage, stretching, and roller work are all good options. If the problem is a lack of tone in the abdominal wall, then you’ll want to seek out exercises to engage and strengthen the appropriate abdominal muscles.

It benefits pretty much everyone to find a healthy and natural curve at L5/S1 by sitting on a wedge to help tip the pelvis—and only the pelvis—forward, removing any counterproductive muscle tension. We have more detailed descriptions of how to properly “seat” your pelvis between your legs in our book, 8 Steps to a Pain Free Back.

It benefits almost everybody to use a wedge to help tip the pelvis - and only the pelvis - forward. This allows the vertebrae above to stack well without unhealthy muscle tension.

The lumbo-pelvic-hip-complex is made up of 15 bones and 29 muscles. With this many moving parts and a general lack of understanding about ideal human form, it’s no wonder that confusing and contradictory information abounds. Our aim is to shepherd you beyond non-specific descriptions of the pelvic area, and guide you towards healthy pelvic anteversion. This can go a long way toward resolving any low back pain and discomfort you have.

Join us in an upcoming Free Workshop (online or in person).  

Find a Foundations Course in your area to get the full training on the Gokhale Method!  

We also offer in person or online Initial Consultations with any of our qualified Gokhale Method teachers.