Ever work your abs to the point you can't walk?

[Matty]

I've always been athletic, have never had any medical conditions, and this has never happened to me before.

I've been working my abs a lot the last week and a half, and yesterday I did a lot of bicycle crunches.

So today I got up around 9 a.m., and by 4 I started getting a pretty bad cramp in my right side. After a couple hours of poker-playing, it spread to the left side and it's pretty bad. Walking isn't worth the pain. Should I be worried? Bicycle crunches are new to me (only this last week and a half). The pain is just like the stitch you get in your side when running dehydrated.

[Alobar]

you prolly tore something

Sign up at a gym or get a personal trainor or something who can guide you to a proper work out ruintine.

[PoBoy321]

You might have a potassium deficiency. I actually had something similar in my arms. I hadn't lifted weights for about a year, then a week ago, I went lifting. I probably worked a little harder than I should have, but for like 3 days after, I could barely move my arms because they were so cramped. Someone told me to eat some bananas and boom, they started feeling better. Turns out that I just didn't have enough potassium in my system, and that's what was causing the cramps.

[HDPM]

Does eating count?

[Matty]

Can't be potassium. I eat a banana a day for the potassium, and haven't had muscle cramps for many months.

I don't see how I could be doing bicycle crunches incorrectly, but maybe I overdid it. Unfortunately there isn't enough time in my days for a gym or personal trainers.

I just did some stretches and that helped some.

Thanks for the advice.

[Dead]

I do 200 crunches and 100 pushups a day, and I occasionally feel the pain that you are describing a few hours after the crunches. When it happens, I take a day off. That usuallly works.

[Matty]

Crunches actually suck. You should try the bicycle maneuver. Within a month you'll have a six-pack unless you eat like total crap.

http://exercise.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.acefitness.org/getfit/abstudy%5Fstudy.cfm

Edit: btw, pain is pretty much gone this morning.

[InchoateHand]

If you haven't worked out in a year, and then you overdo it, the pain in your arms is a build-up of lactic acid, not a potassium deficiency.

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
If you haven't worked out in a year, and then you overdo it, the pain in your arms is a build-up of lactic acid, not a potassium deficiency.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually lactic acid only causes the burn you feel when doing the exercise. The pain the next day is caused by the muscle actually breaking down in a way that's similar to bruising.

[InchoateHand]

Okay, when he was feeling the pain changes that. I wasn't paying attention. The point was it isn't a suddenly manifested potassium deficiency.
In this case, it seems it was a bunch of catabolic steriods.