Abs Will Strengthen Your Back

I HAD A FRIEND who threw out his back maybe two or three times
a year. He always did it in the simplest way—sleeping a little
awkwardly or getting out of a chair too quickly. One time, he
pulled it out reaching into the back seat of his car to get something
his young daughter had dropped. The pain once stabbed
him so badly that he collapsed to the ground while he was
standing at a urinal. (Go ahead. Imagine that.) His problem
wasn’t that he had a bad back; it was that he had weak abs. If he
had trained them regularly, he could’ve kept himself from being
one of the millions of men who suffer from back pain every year.
(And yes, he started the Abs Diet Workout a year ago, and within
weeks his back pain virtually disappeared.)
Since most back pain is related to weak muscles in your trunk,
maintaining a strong midsection can help resolve many back issues.
The muscles that crisscross your midsection don’t function
in isolation; they weave through your torso like a spider web, even
attaching to your spine. When your abdominal muscles are weak,
the muscles in your butt (your glutes) and along the backs of your
STRIP AWAY FAT, STRIP AWAY TROUBLE 13
legs (your hamstrings) have to compensate for the work your abs
should be doing. The effect, besides promoting bad company
morale for the muscles picking up the slack, is that it destabilizes
the spine and eventually leads to back pain and strain—or even
more serious back problems.