Have you ever suffered from back pain during and after training or trail running races?

If so, the cause of your problem could be a weakness of your abdominal muscles and by working on them you could make the annoying pain go away.

In fact, many Trail Runners don’t give enough importance to the Abs and specific exercises to strengthen them. Yet the Abs role is fundamental in ensuring the stability of the pelvis and the balance of the body during the execution of the athletic gesture when running in the mountains uphill and, even more, downhill.

The TRM Coaches have prepared a simple self-assessment test for you to check if your Abs are strong enough or you need to commit to strengthening them.

Here is the Abdominal Test, easy to perform following the steps:

1. Lie on the ground on your back with your knees at 90 degrees and your ankles crossed. Place your hands under the lumbar curve in the middle of the back until you find the point where you clearly feel pressure from the body 
   

   

2. Relax your body and, especially, your shoulders, which tend to stiffen during the execution of this test
3. Keeping the pressure on your hands constant, begin to slowly lower your legs towards the ground without ever taking your hands off and continuing to apply pressure
   

   

4. Stop when you can no longer maintain pressure between your hands and back. If you are able to bring your legs to the ground it will mean that you have excellent control and stability of the pelvis in relation to the movement of your legs, otherwise, you will have to strengthen the abdominal part with specific exercises  

In addition to the Abs, you must also perform stretching exercises every day that will help you improve muscle elasticity. Do you already know which exercises to do? You can find a complete set of exercises here: Stretching Exercises

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