Abdominal exercise

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Abdominal exercises are those that affect the abdominal muscles (colloquially known as the stomach muscles).

Contents

[edit] Usage

Abdominal exercises are useful for building the abdominal muscles. This is useful for improving performance with certain sports, back pain, taking punches, but it has little effect on decreasing fat in that area of the body (belly fat), or on the body's distribution of body fat.[1]

[edit] Breakdowns

The anterior abdominal wall is made up of 4 muscles—the rectus abdominis muscle, the internal and external obliques, and the transversus abdominis.

[edit] Types of abdominal exercises and effectiveness

The effectiveness of abdominal exercise is measured using electromyography (EMG) relative to the traditional crunch. The following ranks abdominal exercises from best to worst in terms of activity detected by the EMG measures:[2]

Activity in rectus abdominis
exercise mean
activity1
Bicycle crunch 248%
Captain's chair 212%
Exercise ball 139%
Vertical leg crunch 129%
Torso track 127%
Long arm crunch 119%
Reverse crunch 109%
Crunch with heel push 107%
Ab roller 105%
Hover 100%
Traditional crunch 100%
Exercise tubing pull 92%
Ab rocker 21%
Activity in obliques
exercise mean
activity1
Captain's chair 310%
Bicycle crunch 290%
Reverse crunch 240%
Hover 230%
Vertical leg crunch 216%
Exercise ball 147%
Torso track 145%
Crunch with heel push 126%
Long arm crunch 126%
Ab roller 101%
Traditional crunch 100%
Exercise tubing pull 77%
Ab rocker 74%

1Compared to traditional crunch (100%)

[edit] Safety of abdominal exercises

Abdominal exercises also put some degree of compressive force on the lumbar spine, putting unwanted stress on the lower back. In addition, exaggerated abdominal exercise can cause respiratory problems.[3] A study of twelve exercises concluded that no single exercise covered all abdominal muscles with high intensity and low compression.[4]

  • High challenge-to-compression ratio
    • Crunch with feet anchored
    • Crunch with feet free
    • Bicycle crunch
    • Hanging straight leg raise
  • Low compression, lower challenge
    • Crunch with feet anchored
    • Crunch with feet free
  • High challenge, higher compression
    • Straight-leg sit-up
    • Bent-leg sit-up
  • Low challenge-to-compression ratio
    (not recommended!)
    • Supine straight-leg raise
    • Supine bent-leg raise
    • Hanging bent-leg raise
    • Static cross-knee crunch

The benefit of focused training on the "deep core" muscles such as the transversus abdominis has been disputed, with some experts advocating a more comprehensive training regimen.



[5]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Michael Jensen, M.D. (2007-01-19). "Belly fat in men: What you need to know". Mayoclinic.com. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/belly-fat/MC00054. Retrieved 2008-04-07. "Sit-ups will make your abdominal muscles stronger, sure. And, you may look thinner by building your abdominal muscles because you can hold in your belly fat better. But strengthening your stomach muscles alone will not specifically reduce belly fat." 
  2. ^ Mark Anders; Peter Francis, Ph.D., Jennifer Davis, M.A (2001). "New Study Puts the Crunch on Ineffective Ab Exercises". ACE fitnessmatters. http://www.acefitness.org/getfit/studies/BestWorstAbExercises.pdf. 
  3. ^ Respiratory problems from abdominal exercise
  4. ^ CT Axler; SM McGill (1997). "Low back loads over a variety of abdominal exercises: Searching for the safest abdominal challenge". Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 29: 804–810. 
  5. ^ Reynolds, Gretchen (2009-06-17). "Is Your Ab Workout Hurting Your Back?". New York Times. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/core-myths/. Retrieved 2009-06-19. 



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