Sore ribs

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scotinjapan
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Sore ribs

Post by scotinjapan »

Hi, I've recentley lost just over 37 pounds. I've been doing free weights, cardio, ab workouts and severely cleaned up diet(no mean feat considering half the recipes and ingredients are so hard to find over here). I've recentley started to do core. Just simple to begin with, such as planks and walking planks but I'm feeling a little tender in lower rib area. I'm trying like hell to make sure form is correct. I'd just like to know is this a common problem and it will go away after I get used to it or could it be I've injured myself?

any replies/help appreciated.
TheAmazingOti
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Post by TheAmazingOti »

First of all, congrats on the weight loss. :wink:

Touch your stomach very, very carefully. Determine EXACTLY where the pain is.

If it's your ribs, you may have hurt them somehow. Just go easy until the pain goes away or see a doctor if it worries you a lot.

If it's your abs or any muscle in that area, just let it recover and then go back to training.

Good luck.
scotinjapan
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Post by scotinjapan »

Thanks. The lower ribs, are not in extreme pain or anything like that--not enough to stop me running or playing soccer. Will give it a couple of days and see how they go.

thanks.
Packard
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Post by Packard »

While it is possible to fracture a rib by working your abs, it is unlikely. More likely is that your serratus muscles are just sore. Try doing some other less strenuous exercises for your core for then next few weeks.

Crunches, side crunches, high kicks, etc. are less likely to strain the abs.

I personally don't think planks develop fully functional muscles. They are really isometric exercises and isometrics have largely been debunked. For fully functional muscles you need to work them through the full range of motion.
TheAmazingOti
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Post by TheAmazingOti »

Isometrics work wonders, but only for that position and around 15 or so degrees in either direction. You can always just hold different positions.

For me, they're useful for when I need to do negatives, like with the one-armed chin-up. I can't do one yet, but I can stop myself on the way down and hold it, I do that at several spots and bam, killer workout right there.

They are mostly for beginners, though, as you adapt to your own weight relatively quickly. Once you can hold a position for... I think it was either a minute or two minutes, it's deemed "useless"... or something like that.
swanso5
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Post by swanso5 »

if id the serratus (the little muscles superman has under his poecs near his arm pit) then that's a good thing

planks rule
Packard
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Post by Packard »

TheAmazingOti wrote:Isometrics work wonders, but only for that position and around 15 or so degrees in either direction. You can always just hold different positions.

For me, they're useful for when I need to do negatives, like with the one-armed chin-up. I can't do one yet, but I can stop myself on the way down and hold it, I do that at several spots and bam, killer workout right there.

They are mostly for beginners, though, as you adapt to your own weight relatively quickly. Once you can hold a position for... I think it was either a minute or two minutes, it's deemed "useless"... or something like that.
I believe that the idea that negatives are a good way to exercise is from a misconception. Everyone knows that a good workout is hard; therefore a hard workout is good. Not necessarily so. I contend that doing negatives are just tiring you out so that you cannot do that extra set that would actually do you some good.

Muscles do only two things: contract and relax. If you are not contracting the muscle then you are not working it. I have tested myself on workouts using isometrics and have found that I get no strength gains or strength losses while on an isometric exercise regamine. University studies have largely debunked isometrics and they are rarely used (except for planks).

How do you reconcile isometric exercises with the basic tenet that you should work a muscle through its full range of motion?
swanso5
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Post by swanso5 »

there 3 contraction types

1 - eccentric

2 - concentric

3 - isometric

they all need to be trained somewhere along the line for optimal strength/muscle gains
Packard
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Post by Packard »

Isometrics as a valid exercise mode has been debunked in the late 1960s. It does not work except to produce a higher number at the exact position you are doing the iso work at. It does not improve athletic performance.

I personally tested isometric exercises when they first came out. I measured strength in legs (best squat) and arms (best curl). I then did 4 months of iso on curls and leg press work. At the end of the 4 months capabilities in both areas decreased.

Later university studies came to the same conclusion.

There is no reason to believe that one set of muscles respond to isometrics when all others do not.

Planks are a fad. Planks will be abandoned at some point when the figure a way to measure abdominal strength and can quantify it.

As far as contractions go, I believe that these are all the same: they are simply contraction at different positions. But for muscles to work athletically they need to move only the shortening of the muscles will accomplish this.
swanso5
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Post by swanso5 »

- they were only debunked because the bloke who invented them had all his subjects use steroids...it IS a most valid training mode for performance enhancement
- isometrics have a 15 degree carryover the joint angle trained so if your using them at a 90 degree angle foir becnh press it, it carrys over to reps performed 10 degrees either side give or take
- 4 months is plenty of time to gain and lose...ordinary testing conditions at best
- yep those university studies are always right (who pays for them??)
- some do respond better then others because of leverage points etc
- you obviously didn't read those articles i posted for you about 3 weeks ago...don't be too ignorant to learn
- clearly not the same
Packard
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Post by Packard »

I've read some (but obviously not all) of the recent literature on isometric exercises.

Isometrics are easy to perform but difficult to perform at appropriate levels.

Isometrics increase blood pressure more than any other form of exercise and can be damaging.

Isometrics increase strength through a very narrow window of range of motion. Unless you perform multi-position isometrics you will not equal a full range of motion exercise. In other words you will have muscles that look good, but don't necessarily work well.

I recall a guy doing isometric curls in the gym at maximal effort. About 5 minutes after he finished he had two black eyes from the blood pressure build up. Not good.

The current "best method" on isometrics is to work at 2/3 maximal effort 2 to 3 times per week, and one maximal effort weekly just to measure progress. Almost no one has access to the needed equipment to execute to the "best method".

I tested the isometrics by comparing starting curl and starting leg press before and after a 4 month period of isometric training. In both exercises max lift went down over the 4 month period. We were using maximal isometrics at that time. Certainly it was the worst performance from any newly tried exercise regimen that I've tried.

And, no, I have never taken steroids.

See: http://www.iovs.org/cgi/content/abstract/50/2/760
swanso5
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Post by swanso5 »

they're best used as:

1 - to strengthen a weak point in a lift

2 - rehab settings to activate dormant muscles

3 - a strength potentiation mode to prime the nervous system as you can simply hold way more wt then you can lift for a full ROM obviously...no one would use them as the sole mode of a training program, that's just silly

best used for 5 - 10sec reps
scotinjapan
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Post by scotinjapan »

Thanks for the informative replies. I've stuck with the planks and the pain has gone(must've been just a twinge from never having done them before)
The planks I've been doing can be seen here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDQAIWWs2fE
also added side prones and dead bugs to these and can definitley feel them working.

are these to be recommended? or are there better options.

apologies for the music in the video.
swanso5
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Post by swanso5 »

those other 2 are great core exercises along with planks, keep them up
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