Avoid Sit-ups For Back Pain
If you’re looking to do exercises for your core to strengthen it and protect your back, you must avoid sit-ups. The reason for this is primarily because of the stress it places on your lower lumbar spine and the position it moves your lower back into.
When we understand that most cases of lower back pain stem from the L4/L5 and L5/S1 segments right at the bottom of the lumbar spine it becomes clear why the sit-up is such a terrible exercise. When you’re doing your sit-ups a long lever is created in the body that exerts an increase in the pressure through your lower lumbar spine. Purely through the levers themselves, this is not a good start. If you have an injury in this region of the back, the last thing you want to do early on is exert more pressure and force through this region.
The second issue is not only the lever, but the way it combines with the mechanics. Most that injure their lower back, have done so through flexion, rounding, forward bending of the lumbar spine. This movement directs more pressure through the discs specifically. This combines with the lever we mentioned earlier to really focus that pressure through the discs!
Thirdly, the sit-up just isn’t a good choice when there are so many other options out there that will challenge your core in a way that is similar and applicable to the way the core works on a daily basis. The core plays a role in stabilising the lumbar spine & maintaining the status quo. A “centred spine”, in spite of external forces pulling it in different directions.
In the early days of back pain it is a failure in this regard that has led to the back pain, and has prevented recovery thus far. With an inability to control the back and spine, it is consistently being stressed in ways it cannot handle. When you’re struggling with back pain, you want to make sure that your rehab is maximally effective at reaching objectives, whilst also being minimally detrimental in unnecessary ways.
Sit-ups achieve neither of these goals!
To learn what you should be doing, get started with the program here and be guided properly through the exercises you should be doing.
