very interesting video

[Guest ilove2workout28]

What's the take on this... Especially when the talk of detriment due to leg raises?

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[AlexX]

A lot of stuff is strength training is not in the right or wrong, black or white category but in the it depends category, just like this. Yes they have a potential to cause discomfort in certain individuals just like some people, due to their physiology, should not do overhead presses or others can't bench with a straight bar (Hell I can't perform olympic lifts not a technique issue but a physiological one). And most certainly I've seen people who should most definitely not perform leg lifts because of either low back issues or how poorly structured their whole routine was.

If you keep injuring your lower back by doing leg lifts then perhaps you should either A. figure out why you are getting injured and fix it if possible or B. Stop doing them.

Some things to keep in mind:

- most gymnasts will never have muscle shortening issues that he talks about because of the amount of stretching that they do.

- gymnasts spend a lot of time in the hollow and arched positions, so also not a problem.

- I am not sure why he says that hips tipped forward decreases glute activation. A slight tilt forward has been shown to increase glute activation as show from the study done on the tribes where the tilt was greatly exaggerated. But like I said not a problem for gymnasts the front split would easily take care of that.

- you can make the argument that the hip flexors will become dominant and just stretching them won't fix the problem. However, once again not a problem for gymnasts since pretty much everything these guys do trains the abdominals and from different angles. Not to mention that strong hip flexors are pretty important to gymnasts.

I think crunches just plain suck but that's just my opinion (much better exercises out there).