Back hurts when doing ab work

I'm interested to see others comments on this... mine does too...and so does my neck even when I do all the little things the video tells me, not pulling on my neck, looking at the ceiling etc...etc....

What types of ab exercises are you doing?

It means your back muscles need to be strengthened too, as they work opposite each other.

If it's your lower back, then probably yes it is incorrect form, especially if you are doing anything that involves laying on your back and lowering and raising your legs from perpendicular to the floor down to parallel to the floor and back up again. It means your core isn't strong enough to do this on its own, so it's recruiting your hip flexors (some of which connect to your lower back) to help out and those muscles are being overworked.

Try holding front and side planks for as long as you can (start with 20 seconds and when you can do that without shaking, make it 30, then 40, then 50...). When you can do each one for two minutes without sagging or collapsing, then try the leg-ab workouts again.

If this doesn't sound like what you're doing - can you give more description? What are you doing?

If you're doing crunches and situps then yes, your lower back will likely hurt over time. You're flexing your spine and that's really not good. I believe the term is called Lordosis. I USE to do a lot of crunches, cable pulldowns and since I injured a disc in my back my therapist says I am not to do them and doesn't recommend anybody do them for that matter. Stick to lifts that require you to use your legs and iso-kinetic flexion exercises.

Here's a good example of method I tried recently and it's very effective. Not only do my abs feel stronger but my back feels MUCH better. http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/iron_core_how_to_build_a_punchproof_body

The exercises may look easy, that is one hell of an athlete demo'ing them, and I promise they're not.

I've had the same problem when I was in competitive gymnastics. We spent most of our time doing ab work and neglected our lower back. I ended up having to do physical therapy to strengthen my lower back muscles to balance it out. But I believe it could also be due to incorrect form. I think I remember hearing on a bender ball video that if you aren't squeezing your core while doing the abs exercises you could be hurting your back. But I'm not completely sure.