The Ab Revolution™ is a revolution in core training – a change in thinking and using your body for real life.

The Ab Revolution™ trains your abdominal and core muscles without crunches or forward bending. Why? Crunches and other flexion movements don't teach you to hold neutral spine, which is the function of core muscles for real daily life movement and ambulation. Core muscles do not position your spine automatically through strengthening or other core exercises. Strengthening does not create movement. Crunches, leg lifts, Pilates, and forward bending exercises and stretches are the last thing you need after a day of bending forward over a desk, steering wheel, and everything else. The Ab Revolution™ retrains you to hold neutral spine to prevent swayback, hyperlordosis, facet joint pain, and lower back pain from these conditions. With this ab retraining method, you functionally exercise abdominal and back muscles at the same time. The Ab Revolution™ is not just a set of exercises, but retraining body and thinking for healthy life, exercise, and real health during your real life. When else should you be healthy?.

Training and certification is available from Dr. Bookspan, through the Academy

 

History of This Method. I started formalizing this method in the 1970s with good results in students and patients who used it. I continued collecting data. I did more studies testing the results and printed the first training manual (typed actually, from hand printed notes) in 1982. Later work in injury research for University and Military was preventing back pain from running and carrying loads. Disease Non-Battle Injuries (DNBI) from exercising in the gym and doing PT is a huge military issue - grounding far more personnel than combat casualty. I ran several more studies on overarching (hyperlordosis), confirming it is a major overlooked cause of lower back pain.

My method shows how to understand and reverse the cause of pain for yourself, with simple repositioning to neutral spine instead of overarching (hyperlordosis). It was unexpected news to some who have been taught to overarch in the gym, and who deliberately tilt the hip and backside far out in back for exercise. But it was welcome relief for my guys who liked to joke that they were my STRACguys - combat slang for 'stupid troops running around in circles.'

The training manual went through several printings to improve layout, explanation, and photos. My life's work in stopping pain from injurious spine positioning during life and from conventional exercises became summarized in the book Ab Revolution, No More Crunches No More Back Pain, so that you don't have to suffer any more. The book has two parts. The first shows how to stop back pain during various standing activity in daily life, both non-active and active, including running. The second part gives ways to exercise core muscles in healthier ways. You can also come learn this method with me, and become certified through the Academy. See my CLASS page.

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1. What is the Ab Revolution™?
The Ab Revolution is a revolutionary core training method—no crunches or forward bending. It combines sports medicine with fun exercises and functional movement (movements you actually need for real life). You get a workout at the same time that you retrain your muscles and spine position for healthier body mechanics, and your brain to know what is neutral spine for all your activities.

• The Ab Revolution has two components. The first is to learn how to consciously use your core to reposition your spine to neutral, away from injurious hyperlordosis, for back pain control during everything you do. Lower back and facet pain from overarching, also called hyper-extension, swayback, and hyperlordosis, is quickly stopped. It is simple repositioning, not doing exercises or strengthening. The second component is for people who also want exercise. It uses the new healthy neutral positioning during innovative exercises for healthier and more effective exercise than conventional core training.
• As a back pain control method, The Ab Revolution is done, not by tightening or exercising over time, but simply using core muscles to move your spine out of unhealthy position and feel the reduction in pain right then, and to maintain healthy vertebral angle during daily life.
• As an exercise for fitness, weight loss, and core muscle workout, there are Ab Revolution exercises and application of Ab Revolution neutral spine positioning during conventional exercises, that can be done in the gym, weight room, at home, and during favorite sports and everyday activities. All the exercises can be put together to music as a hi-energy fitness class.
• The Ab Revolution was developed by Dr. Jolie Bookspan, a military scientist, in response to the high incidence of back pain from conventional abdominal exercises, and lack of transfer to daily life.

 

2. What does The Ab Revolution™ do that conventional ab exercises don't?
The Ab Revolution works differently in several ways. It strengthens abdominal and core muscles without forward bending. It specifically teaches healthful spine positioning at the same time as it strengthens. By retraining how to hold neutral spine, it quickly removes a major source of lower back pain without having to do exercises. It provides effective abdominal exercises for those who want exercise, from simple to more challenging than conventional exercises. It dispels myths about abs, and is functional, meaning it trains your muscles to be more effective in the way you move in real life.

• Forward bending at the neck, back, and hip for exercise trains rounded posture and is a known factor in neck and back pain, and is counterproductive for most people after a day of sitting.
• Strengthening alone will not fix an injury or pain, and will not change injurious body positioning. Plenty of muscular people have pain. Unhealthy spine ergonomics, common during exercise, sports, and daily life, can compress the joints and discs of the back no matter how strong the muscles.
• The Ab Revolution method strengthens abdominal and back muscles simultaneously while specifically teaching how to use the core muscles to maintain healthful spine position during the exercise, and to transfer that knowledge of positioning to all activities during the rest of your day.
• The Ab Revolution dispels old myths, for example, to use abs you must tighten them or “suck them in” or “press your navel to your spine.” Tightening does not change injurious spine position or put you into healthy position. You cannot breath in well or move properly when you hold your abdomen tightly. Another myth is that you must keep your knees bent during exercises to “keep your back in proper position.” If it were true that you have to bend your knees to protect your back, how are you supposed to stand up and walk away? It is not your knees that position your lower spine, but your abdominal muscles. The Ab Revolution teaches you specifically how to use your abdominal muscles to move your spine and hold it in healthy position.
• The motions and exercises used in The Ab Revolution are functional. That means they train the body and muscles in the way they need to function in real life, standing, and moving, not just when lying on the floor.
• Another benefit is to put health and fun back into fitness training. “Fitness” is often unhealthy because of fads, emphasis on cosmetic appearance regardless of the toll on the joints, lack of information about how muscles really work, and lack of transferring healthy movement skills to everyday life.
  

 

3. What Kinds of Back Pain Can The Ab Revolution™ Help?
The techniques directly retrain your core to prevent hyperlordosis (swayback) and the facet joint pain and low back pain resulting. Interestingly, an x-ray may show reduced lumbar lordosis (flat back) but the patient may be helped by the repositioning of The Ab Revolution. The reduced movement ability of their spine has less tolerance for slouching to end range, since the end range is reduced. A slighter lean may pressure the less mobile spine. In other populations, hyperlordosis can reduce needed space around spinal nerves and discs, increasing the pain from other conditions such as degenerating and herniating disc, stenosis, and impingement. Stop the source and stop the pain. New work is also showing relief of disc pain where overarching pinches the protruding disc, and possible, where overarching is directly degenerating the discs themselves,

 

4. Crunches make the neck and sometimes the back hurt. Will Ab Revolution™ exercises hurt the neck?
The forward bending used in conventional abdominal exercise practices and emphasizes forward-rounded posture. Forward bending is hard on your back and neck and does not train you how to stand and move when you get up off the floor. The Ab Revolution trains your abs without hunching your posture. Many of the exercises are done standing using your muscles to hold straight positioning and neutral spine the way you need for real life. The Ab Revolution trains you how to move in daily life without unhealthy spine positioning that contributes to neck and lower back pain.

 

5. Does The Ab Revolution™ give you a washboard stomach?
It can. You can work your abs harder with The Ab Revolution™ than with conventional exercises. You work your abs and back at the same time as giving your back healthy definition too. Since The Ab Revolution teaches how to use muscles for real life, you learn to use muscle groups together, a bonus that also works arms and legs and upper body, while getting an ab workout. You can use Ab Revolution exercises together to create a workout to burn calories.

 

6. Who Uses The Ab Revolution™?
Anyone who wants to stop low back pain, improve health, posture, appearance, and use and muscularity of abdomen and "core" can use The Ab Revolution. The simple pain prevention moves can be done by anyone at any fitness level, and are used in the United States and abroad by top spine centers and physicians. The tougher training techniques are used for superior training without injury by aerobics instructors and trainers in fitness centers around the world. The toughest components of The Ab Revolution are used by top athletes, law enforcement personnel, and military teams.

 

7. Can someone with osteoporosis or herniated discs in the neck or back use The Ab Revolution™? What about Abdominal Hernia?
The Ab Revolution does not use forward-rounding and bending exercises. The forward bending of conventional abdominal and core training (like crunches, curl-ups, and others that bend the spine and hip forward) can put degenerative and herniating pushing forces the discs, and are not a good idea for anyone with rounding or fractures from osteoporosis. A habitual rounded forward upper body posture is a main factor in causing Upper Crossed Syndrome. The Ab Revolution actively retrains muscles away from this posture and problem. I have been getting hopeful reports from patients with abdominal hernia and Diastasis Recti (ab muscle separation), who say that while conventional flexion abdominal exercises hurt and worsen abdominal hernia pain, they can use Ab Revolution without pain. Check back as data accrue. Check with your health providers to work sensibly to increase your health and physical abilities using The Ab Revolution.

 

8. Is It Scientifically Researched As Effective?
This method was developed over many years in the lab and with real life patients, with several thousands of students and participants, testing combinations of established and proven sports medicine rehabilitation techniques and physical training methods, then rejecting non-useful techniques and integrating top techniques into real activities. Long, comprehensive follow up and feedback showed that use of the method resulted in direct reduction of cause of damage.

• Ab Revolution functional core retraining was found to relieve lower back pain more effectively than conventional physical therapy (Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Volume 38:5, 2006),
• Ab Revolution relieves lower back pain more effectively than conventional exercises and Pilates (Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Volume 37:5, May, 2005).
• More work has identified three kinds of hyperlordosis that are relieved using Ab Revolution techniques (Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Volume 39:5 Supplement May 2007).
• The Ab Revolution hyperlordosis retraining method was found to relieve lumbar disc and stenosis pain. (Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Volume 41:5 Supplement, 2009),
• Hyperlordosis Retraining Method Relieves Spondylolisthesis Pain. (Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Volume 42:5, 2010.)
• Ongoing work continues in identifying injury preventing movement technique and healthful core and back strengthening methods.

Back pain patients with hyper-lordosis, facet pain, and pain with standing/ambulation usually resolve pain from those problems after an office visit instruction. Repositioning the spine to away from damaging angle is key, rather than weeks of indirect exercises. Patients who returned to hyperlordotic slouching had return of cause of symptoms. Simple follow up to remind them to use the method resolved returning symptoms.

 

9. Where Can I Learn More and Try The Ab Revolution™?

- Learn the concepts and try exercises now with this quick-start article: How to exercise your abs without crunches

- Read the same free abs article en Français

- Fun classes in The Ab Revolution™ (and Lower Body Revolution™ and other innovative methods) run in several locations in Philadelphia, and nationally in fun and fast moving workshops and teacher training: Classes and schedules

- Third edition Ab Revolution™ book is now available, in full color eBook and in expanded revised print edition. Completely reorganized and expanded. Clearer and easier to follow

- Got the core? Get the "T" Click image or link for easy fun, abdominal muscle reminders.

Fun t-shirt shows how to use abdominal and core muscles for real life lifting and activity - UNCommon Sense.