[suitejudyblueeyes]

Hi fitness folks,

I did an ab routine last night for the first time probably since I had to do sit-ups in middle school. My abs are sore today, which I don't mind at all, as that's what I intended to do. However, my lower back is also very sore, particularly the muscles on like... either side of my spine. (You can feel them flex when you walk and have your hand on your lower back, if that helps.)

It's not incredibly painful, it's just regular muscular soreness, so I'm sure I didn't hurt myself or anything, but I'm wondering if it's normal to be sore on your back when you do ab stuff after, oh, 10 years of not bothering? Does this happen generally when you do ab work? I just didn't expect it and that's why I'm acutely aware of the soreness.

And for general FYI, I was doing the AbJam workout on the basic TurboJam dvd. It consists of 10 minutes standing ab work and 10 minutes on the ground.

And if the general verdict is that I'm normal (), does anyone have a particularly effective stretch for this area?

Thanks!

[baffled111]

It's normal. The lower back muscles and the abdominal muscles are all part of your 'core' and you want to develop them all evenly. I'm not into stretching so I suggest that you congratulate yourself on a job well done, run yourself a hot bath and have a nice soak.

p.s. You should consider other kinds of strength training as well. Abs are the absolute last place you'll see improvements but overall strength training can make you lean, lean, lean.

[MissGiggles]

You can stretch your lower back by doing a yoga childs pose and a pilates move called "swimming" or upward facing dog. You can google the moves, they are pretty simple. But as you get stronger you should not feel anything on your lower back, it usually indicates poor form. That's why I like Pilates and yoga type moves since they emphasize proper form. I would watch a few videos and get some idea of how to balance out all the groups. You have to do lower back with ab work, you may not need to do as many reps since it strengthens pretty quickly.. but they are opposing muscle groups.

working one without the other can lead to injury.

[suitejudyblueeyes]

Excellent, thanks for the replies. I am doing overall strength work as well... I have very little core strength and hence my foray into focused ab work. I was worried about the poor form element but I'm not entirely sure what I could have been doing wrong (and it's not something I can get help with from people who can't see me do it, obviously!). Sounds like I won't worry about it for now but if it continues to happen as my strength is built up I will worry about form. Thanks again.

[Skinnybride]

I do the abjam standing part twice in a row because any type of situps flat on the floor makes my lower back hurt while i'm doing them, I do regular situps on a stability ball.