Working your abdominal muscles is very important for building and maintaining strength, endurance, and flexibility. You should also include exercises to strengthen your lower back. Exercising your abdominal and lower back muscles equally will help build strength, improve posture, and prevent pain or injuries to the hip and back areas. These exercise routines emphasize building strength in all areas of the abdominals: upper, lower, and sides. The lower abdominals are a very often neglected area. Lack of exercise to this area may contribute to low-back problems.

Abdominal exercises are intense, use caution if you have degenerative disease in your spine or hips.

Position Instructions

• Lie on back with hips and knees slightly bent.
• Raise your arms, head and shoulders off the floor as shown.
• The position is held for 2 seconds with 5 -10 repetitions.
• Raise to the point that your lower back is lifted from the floor.
• Your feet should not be stabilized, because this allows the leg muscles to do the work and lessens the effectiveness of the abdominal muscle strengthening.
• The partial sit-up should be done with a slight right and left twist to strengthen the oblique muscles of the abdomen.