If your lower lumbar spine is pulled forward/downward, we end up with an arch. And an arch with hundreds of pounds of pulling force, well, that could simply break your spine right off! What muscle is the antagonist, thereby keeping your back from breaking? The same muscle that does the opposite action - rounding the back - namely the abs! So when your Ilio-psoas is working, as in flexing your hip-joints, your abs are protecting your spine by working statically and resisting the arching. The more the Ilio-psoas pull, the more the abs has to work statically. Unfortunately, static work doesn't build muscle. If so, you'd get great results from loading on 400 lbs in the bench press, holding it statically with straight arms for a while and then racking it. You might get a slight increase in strength, but I'm pretty sure no pro bodybuilder built his chest using that method.
Conclusion
So what is all this coming down to? Well, by now we know that training the abs is done by decreasing the distance between the ribcage and the pelvis. And we also know that flexing the hip joints, as in raising the legs, is NOT decreasing the distance between the ribcage and the pelvis. There you have the hip-flexor muscles, and Ilio-psoas in particular, doing all the action, and that action just happens to be the very opposite of the abdominal action. Therefore, the abdominals are not trained in a productive way, but merely exhausted in prolonged statical work in preventing your spine from breaking off. This usually results in a catabolic, lactic-acid buildup, which is misinterpreted as evidence of the ab-training being effective.
Say goodbye to hanging knee-raises, straight-leg raises, knee-raises off the edge of a bench and every other fancy knee/leg-raise action you're getting bombarded by in the magazines advocating the pro's programs. That doesn't necessarily mean they're stupid, but rather underlines the importance of finding out the FACTS, not just going with the crowd and accepting myths without questioning.
Next week we're going down to business on what really WORKS, how to avoid excessive strain on the spine when training abs and why the classic sit-up might not be a very good idea. And how COULD I resist trashing the infomercials' "Ab-Destroyer 3001 Megadeath HyperOverdrive Flab-Remover"-kind of machines when I'm at it? :-)
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