Back Pain

[SD Tricker]

My back will just not stop hurting while doing crunches and sit ups! It hurts after like ten crunches. I have tried taking breaks and returning after that and it seems to even get worse. I try hanging leg rises which do not hurt as much, but my back still does hurt. I just can not figure it out. I figure maybe my back hurts so easily in crunches because my back is not straight. It is hard for me to keep my back straight when doing sit ups. I will be probably going to the air force and will be doing a million sit ups a day at BCT. So I need to figure this out, or I am scrwed.

[anfeyd]

This problem is easily solved by ceasing the activity at hand. Train your abs a different way until you find out whats wrong.

[Honken]

How often do you train your back?

[trickstutorials]

Have you been diagnosed with scoliosis? Have you had any back injury's prior to this happening? How often do you train your back? If you could give me some insight on some of these questions, hopefully I will be able to give you some advice. Thank you.

[SD Tricker]

I already said I took a big break from crunchyes and sit ups. I did hanging leg raises instead. My back hurt just a little but hardly as much. When I returned to crunches and sit ups, my back was worse. I do work out my back too. Not all that much, but I do work it out. I have never has any back injuries in my life, nor have I had any adnormalities in my back. My back just started to hurt more and more. It is so strange...

[Skippy]

Alot of people have fairly incorrect form when doing crunchs or sit ups resulting in back pains, even so though, they're both pretty shit anyway.

Leg raises, drilling kicks and planks for the win;

Planks:

http://images.teamsugar.com/files/upl0/1/12981/07_2008/plank-on-elbows.jpg

I used to do things like L seats and V sits as part of my core conditioning, although I found the progression in them was fairly slow. I now do weighted floor leg raises, certain kicks I drill (front lifts and back lifts) I do with leg weights on. I also do 3 sets of planks at the end of each core workout.

Nowadays, I find this is suiting me well, when I went back to see recently if I could still do L seats, I managed to do a V sit much better than back when I actually practiced them, I almost done a full russian lever ^.^

Ideally though, I'd still say the best single exercise to get your core conditioned is deadlifts, although if you have no access to weights, bodyweight hyper extensions, pull ups heavy enough you can only do about 5 reps and the work I do that I listed above will do :] Not as good a job as deadlifts, but better than doing nothing.

[Jackamaideshwang]

I used to get hardcore backpain (lumbar) when doing leg raises and way worse for backflips. It was because of poor form and and a tight ass..... The physio told me to stretch my glutes and after a few days of stretching the back pain was pretty much gone. Also, i found that when doing backflips and leg raises, my abdominal strength was so poor, i had to really arc my back, and this doesnt use your abs but the hip flexors i think. once i used proper form in those there were no more problems.
If you dont know the proper form for these to target your abs. You'll find they use the term "lower abs", which is ridiculous, pretty sure its the rectus abdominus and thats it.

http://www.howtodothings.com/health-and-fitness/a3209-how-to-do-lower-ab-exercises.html
hope this helps man