I’ve found it difficult to get adequate ab work in without also overworking the hip flexors leading to pain at the front of/ under the superior iliac spine. This is most likely due to faulty patterns in the squat/ deadlift (hyperextension, form breakdown, etc. that I’m also working on), but I thought another way to fix this could be to reinforce proper positioning of the pelvis while strengthening the lower abs in particular.
- Should I include ab work on the GPP days if I cannot (or should not) isolate the lower abs from the hip flexors?
- Is there a variation that relies less on hip flexors and more on the abs?
For someone with APT, I would think to include it if not for the strenghting/ conditioning benefits then as practice for maintaining a neutral pevlis while under a lesser load.
We often have people use things like planks and ab wheel rollouts. But you are entirely too worried about APT, to be honest.
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To be honest, i was just looking for a cause of the pain in the hip flexor and overly fatigued and painful lower back out of the gate with the 12 week template (other than just not being ready for the lower body volume, which, admittedly, i thought might be an issue). I could barely lift my leg to get into the car after the second day. I get it that I miscalculated.
APT (cumulative effect of “weaker/stronger” muscle recruitment across the pelvis) is just something that ive been working on recently in my deadlifting so it happened to be on my mind. Not thinking about it has made me miss on heavy attempts recently and causes my back to fatigue early on leg day, but this could be something else I guess. Just trying to figure this stuff out one variable at a time.
thanks anyway Austin.
Sorry to hear you’ve been having trouble, phonics.
It’s definitely more likely that you’re having fatigue issues due to being unadapted / not ready for that level of training, with or without a significant technique issue that can exacerbate things by loading tissues that aren’t ready for it either. I’d suggest posting a form check to our FB group and considering one of our other less specialized, 3-day templates to find a dose of stimulus you can tolerate better.
As for the last part there … I’m still not entirely clear on how this concern about pelvic muscle recruitment / APT is causing failed deadlift reps. But I hope you are able to get that sorted out.
Completely my fault. I was toying around with a short reduced volume cycle (after the bridge 1.0 and a couple more months of similar workload). Im surprised how fast my work capacity decays even without a decay in strength (1RMs). I’ll give this another go when ready.
As for the DLs, im guessing its more hyperextension of the lumbar and relatively weaker abs and less from the hams where i lose tension forward off the floor. To me, it feels like neutral hips (flat back) but has been demonstrably weaker. I just need to practice to lock in the flat backed stronger pull.
thanks.
As a closing thought, I would say that thinking of APT itself as something that hampers the lifter’s ability to perform is overblown, especially regarding all of the corrective stuff associated with it. Whatever potential for faulty movement patterns and overworking &/or underworking certain muscle groups is not any more deserving of attention than all of the other common sources of form creep when trying to maintain a trainable lift.
I have been told I have an apt as well and I have also always felt things like leg raises and the like in the hip flexors and never in the abs. However, I was told to try planks and let me tell you that certainly gets the job done. They also suck. So they work, naturally lol