I personally feel that by over-working my abs from January to June 2011, I ended up causing disk damage to my spine.  To the tune of over a $1000 in medical expenses for visits to Chiropractors, Physical Therapists, Doctors and for an MRI.  I understand why my disks were looking so bad!  Now I’m taking a break from crunches/core exercises and focusing on lengthening my spine, doing exercises to build my lower back, decompression and other great therapies.  Read the article below for more information:

 

For a study published this year, researchers at Indiana State University had a group of healthy, young adults squat, lunge, twist, crunch and hold a rigid plank position to measure the hardiness of their back, abdominal and side muscles, the area generally known as the core. The same volunteers then completed a battery of physical performance tests, including leaping off the ground while tossing a medicine ball backward over the head and sprinting through a short obstacle course.

The researchers had expected that the volunteers with the sturdiest cores would outshine the others on the tests of physical performance. But they did not. There was little correlation in this study between robust core muscles and athleticism. Despite the emphasis that many coaches, trainers and athletes themselves place on “core training for increased performance,” the authors write, “our results suggest otherwise”  — and in the process raise some intriguing questions about just how core strength affects fitness and whether a rippling abdomen, while attractive, is worth the effort.

The role of the core in physical performance has been a topic of considerable interest and controversy among sports scientists, as well as coaches and trainers, for years. Most of us think that a taut midsection, achieved usually by multiple crunches and perhaps some medicine-ball exercises and side planks, will make us not just less self-conscious in our swimsuits but also better athletes.

Read the rest of this article at the NY Times

Another article to read: http://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/Abstract/2011/08000/To_Crunch_or_Not_to_Crunch__An_Evidence_Based.2.aspx