Great Ab Exercises to Avoid Lower Back Pain

Suffering with some kind of back pain is very common; therefore many people try different types of exercises for lower back pain. As a matter of fact, more than 70% of all people will have an episode of lower back pain at some point in their lifetime. Even if your back pain is not very severe it can stop you from sleeping comfortably at night. It is very important to know a few simple exercises that will help with back pain.

1. Don't just do traditional ab exercises like crunches and reverse crunches. Be sure to do some work including Swiss ball exercises, rotational exercises such as the cable woodchopper or Russian twists, as well as exercises like the plank and side plank.

2. Be cautious of exercises like sit-ups and Roman chair sit-ups if you have back pain. You may know people who do hundreds of sit-ups and their abs look great and they never had a problem with back pain in their life, but if you have existing back pain, you'd better be careful with exercises that predominantly use the hip flexors.

3. If you try advanced exercises without building up slowly, you're likely to injure your back even further. For example, don't try hanging straight leg raises if you can't even do them bent kneed with good form. If you can't lunge properly with your body weight, don't do them with dumbbells or a barbell.

4. Leg Raise helps strengthen your hip and leg muscles, but if you do the isometric abdominal exercise first, it can also be a stabilization exercise for your back. As you hold and tighten your abdominals, lift your leg off the floor six to 12 inches. Be careful that when you lift your legs, your back does not arch.

5. Avoid high-risk exercises like bent over rows and squats. If you're able to do them, then do them with impeccable form and avoid super heavy weights. There's no need to go heavy when you can make a moderate or light weight feel heavier with stricter form and variations in technique like slowing down your reps, using continuous tension and not locking out, decreasing your rest intervals, and other methods.

6. Use very strict form in your abdominal training, and that includes performing the exercises slowly and deliberately with physical and mental concentration on the quality of contraction. A lot of people are conditioned to do ab exercises such as sit-ups for time, but fast reps reduce the quality of muscle contraction because the movements are being executed with momentum and not muscle action.

These are only some exercises you can do, but they are very effective. It is also very important to consult your doctor if you have more serious pain in your back, because back pain can become very serious if it is not treated.