Most young people who haven’t discovered sitting and video games have strong core muscles. For older athletes, these were the yesteryears when we could play on the playground all day long without hurting. However, prolonged sitting tends to keep the upper core or abdominal muscles somewhat strong while the lower core muscles (below the belly button) grow weak.
If you are wondering about the balance in your abdominal muscles, try this exercise.
1) Do some partial sit-ups on your back. You are not going all the way up. Only go up as far as needed to feel the top third of your abdominal muscles kick in.
2) Do some leg lifts where you feel the lower third of your abdominal muscles in use. You could be on your back and kicking or crunching the legs back towards you or leg extensions towards the ceiling.
3) Then you can do full sit-ups to feel the abdominal muscles in the middle. Using a large exercise ball to isolate the mid-core without working the other two areas could help.
While sitting and getting up from sitting, we work the upper and mid abdominal muscles and basically sit on the lower abdominal muscles.
When working out, isolate the three areas of your abdominal muscles and even out muscle strength so one area is not weaker than the rest.
For your back do the same. Pull weights towards your lower back, mid back and upper back. While face down, do a flutter kick motion with corresponding hand motions.
A good image is that of a bug on it’s back trying to right itself to get up. Move your legs and arms while face down and on your back like you are a bug that is having difficulty getting up for about five minutes keeping your hands and feet off of the floor.
