{"id":5962,"date":"2026-08-10T15:37:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T13:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cvicisko.sk\/cvicite-brusne-svaly-a-citite-bolest-6-rychlych-tipov-na-zlepsenie\/"},"modified":"2026-11-14T07:49:52","modified_gmt":"2026-11-14T06:49:52","slug":"working-your-abs-neck-or-lower-back-pain-6-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cvicisko.sk\/en\/working-your-abs-neck-or-lower-back-pain-6-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"Working your abs and feeling pain in your neck or lower back? 6 quick tips for improvement"},"content":{"rendered":"

You know the talk from lunch breaks and chats over coffee. Summer is coming and everyone has guaranteed advice and tips on training your abs. Of course, everyone wants perfect curves for their swimsuit. Besides the visual appeal of a new tummy, however, the shadowy side is often overlooked: pain that appears after the second or third week of exercising. Usually in the neck and the lumbar spine. But what could be causing it? Let’s look at this issue a little more deeply.<\/p>\n

THE MOST COMMON EXERCISES<\/h3>\n

When it comes to aesthetic goals, most people focus their training on the rectus abdominis (musculus rectus abdominis). This is the muscle responsible for the great-looking \u201cwashboard\u201d or \u201c6-pack\u201d on our body. It runs along the entire abdominal wall and connects the chest to the pelvis. It is the most superficial of the whole group of abdominal muscles. Its function is to bend the trunk forwards, which is why it is great to train with classic \u201ccrunches\u201d (an abdominal exercise in which we try to bring the trunk closer to the legs). Lowering straight legs to the floor while lying on your back, or the well-known plank, are also often used to train the abs. These are exactly the three exercises in which people most often experience neck or lower back pain. So why is that?<\/p>\n

ABDOMINAL MUSCLES<\/h3>\n

Apart from the rectus abdominis, the abdominal muscle group is made up of the deepest-lying transverse abdominal muscle (m. transversus abdominis), which mainly has a stabilising function and should keep the chest and pelvis in the correct position during movement. You can imagine it as a wide belt around your waist. The abdominal muscle group is completed by the oblique muscles: the internal oblique (m. obliquus internus) and the external oblique (m. obliquus externus). They run crosswise from the chest to the pelvis across the abdomen, allow us, for example, to rotate the trunk, and help with breathing.<\/p>\n

For them to engage ideally, it is essential to know how to breathe correctly (using the diaphragm), which goes hand in hand with the correct exercise technique. If you don’t stick to the right technique, one that loads your body evenly, the technique itself can easily start causing pain.<\/p>\n

TECHNIQUE MATTERS<\/h3>\n

Of course, when you train your abdominal muscles, other muscle groups also join in the movement (e.g. the back muscles, the neck muscles and the muscles around the hip joints). What matters, however, is that the activity of these muscles is not greater than the activity of the abdominal muscles. Translated into plain language: we need to know how to do it. This tends to be the most common cause of pain during or after abdominal exercises.<\/p>\n

If your lower back tends to hurt when you train your abs, check:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. whether you arch too much in the lumbar area as you perform the exercise, which overloads your back muscles;
\n2. whether you are using too large a range of motion;
\n3. whether you are breathing correctly (using the diaphragm).<\/p>\n

If you feel pain in your neck area when exercising, check:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. whether you start the movement by pushing your head and neck forwards, which puts too much load on the muscles in this area;
\n2. whether you are leaning back;
\n3. whether you are breathing correctly (using the diaphragm).<\/p>\n

CORRECT BREATHING WORKS WONDERS<\/h3>\n

\"Working<\/p>\n

Efficient breathing is an important part of training in terms of technique, and abdominal training is no exception. For the muscles of the trunk to work properly, that is, the abdominal, back and pelvic floor muscles, good work by the diaphragm is essential. It is precisely this \u201cteamwork of the muscles\u201d that ensures stability of movement, protection of the muscles and, most importantly, protection of the spine itself against unwanted damage and pain. These are the main reasons why good exercise execution matters, and we should always keep it in mind whenever we plan to add new exercises to our training.<\/p>\n

These are, of course, only general tips. They can be applied in many cases, but certainly not in all of them. Every pain is individual. So if you suffer from back pain, we invite you to a free training session<\/a>, where we will look at your pain individually.<\/p>\n

If neck or lower back pain has been bothering you for longer, compensatory exercises<\/a> or physiotherapy<\/a> can help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You know the talk from lunch breaks and chats over coffee. Summer is coming and everyone has guaranteed advice and tips on training your abs. Of course, everyone wants perfect curves for their swimsuit. Besides the visual appeal of a new tummy, however, the shadowy side is often overlooked: pain that appears after the second […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[113],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-training"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cvicisko.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cvicisko.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cvicisko.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cvicisko.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cvicisko.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5962"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.cvicisko.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6040,"href":"https:\/\/www.cvicisko.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5962\/revisions\/6040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cvicisko.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cvicisko.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cvicisko.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cvicisko.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}