365 Ways #132–I’m picking on crunches, cuz I got your back!

#132–The human body can go weeks without food and days without water, but it can only survive for about three minutes without oxygen. The body will do anything it has to in order to breathe, often sacrificing bite mechanics or posture despite any orthopedic cost. A prime example is the person who does 3 sets of 100 crunches daily. The abdominals are fast-twitch muscles and respond to this type of faulty loading by shortening. This depresses the manubrium of the sternum resulting in a “dropped front panel”–essentially a position of exhalation. To compensate, the body juts the head forward and little muscles of the neck end up paying the price first. Then the eyes (which must remain level with the horizon) become strained, the mouth drops open, and the entire kinetic chain collapses into dysfunction.