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Get Great Abdominals! Get "The Abs E-zine!" FREE! Get notified each time we post new articles, hot tips, great reviews and delicious recipes... subscribe now & get the FREE amazing abs eBook, "Mission: Abdominals"  About About Amazing Abdominals Our Authors & Ab Experts Abdominal Exercises Dumbbell Crawling: The Most Insanely Effective Abdominal Exercise Barbell Curl Squats For A Powerful Core Trunk Twists With A Twist - Tighten Your Love Handles Now! Bench Press Leg Raise Crunches For Lower Abs Crunch Pulldowns For a Great Six-Pack Two Exercises With a Twist For Rock-Hard Obliques and Explosive Core Power Seated Les Raises - A New Approach To An Old Favorite 2 Dumbbell Swings For a "Steel Corset" Core The Best Ab Exercise You Never Heard Of Ab & Core Workouts The Effectiveness Of Sand Bag Training For Abdominals How To Get 6 Pack Abs & Lose Stomach Fat Workout Complexes For Hardness & Conditioning Old School Workouts To Develop Granite Hard Abdominals The 3 Best Abdominal Exercises that Are Not Abdominal Exercises! Burn Fat Faster With "Real" Stair Climbing Workouts 2 Challenging Exercises For Powerful Rock Hard Abs How To Get Six Pack Abs Using Neglected Cable Exercises Attack Your Abs With These Underground Power Moves Killer Abs At Home In 12 Minutes Recent Ab Training Articles The Top 55 Foods For Rock Hard Six Pack Abs The Rise of SandBag Training Develop Your Abs Through Heavy Strength Training Cover Model Abs In One Workout Per Week The Ultimate Secrets to a Flat Stomach and Six Pack Abs Keep it simple stupid - The KISS principle Can You Really Lose More By Exercising Less? Three Unusual Secrets For Awesome Abs Super Sexy Swimsuit Six-Pack In 12 Weeks The Latest Research On Post Workout Nutrition The Best Exercises For Your Lower Abs Revealed Bulletproof Your Abs And Injury Proof Your Back The Truth And Secrets Of Getting Ripped Abs Abdominal Fat Dangers Abs Without Effort Article Archives Sports Training & Conditioning Punch Proof Abdominals: How To Get Abs Like A Pro Boxer The 7 Sins Of Baseball Specific Core Training The 2 Major Keys To Golf Conditioning Success Core Training For Martial Arts: Abs Like Bruce Lee! E-book Reviews Firm & Flatten Your Abs Brink's Bodybuilding Revealed Gourmet Nutrition Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle Book Reviews The Abs Diet Website Reviews The Facts About Fitness Product Reviews 6 Second Abs 6 Popular Ab Machines Put To The Test Interviews Turbulence Training Interview Abdominal Training Secrets Healthy Recipes Seared Turkey and Squash with Saffron & Apple Quinoa Ostrich Chili Salmon Citrus Spinach Souffle Stir Fry Veggie Easy Tuna Recipes For Bodybuilders & Dieters Ask the Ab Guru Should You Train Abs To Failure? The Core In Four Abdominal Workout Fitness Fads Come And Go, But The Swiss Ball Is Here To Stay Correcting Bad Posture With Ab Training The Truth About Ab Machines Core Training: Legit or Just The Latest Fad? Ask the Fat Loss Guru The Amazing Abdominals Mistake Foods That Burn Body Fat The incredible shrinking fat cell Post workout drinks and fat loss How to lose loose skin after weight loss Does eating at night make you fat? |
The best exercise for your lower abs revealed By Christian Finn, Men's Health Columnist & Exercise Scientist www.ChristianFinn.com  Some fitness experts will tell you there are distinct "upper and lower" abdominals, which need to be exercised differently.Others say that rectus abdominis (the six-pack look is the result of bands of connective tissue that "cut" into rectus abdominis) is just one muscle, and doing separate exercises for the upper and lower abs is a waste of time. So, who's right? Some studies do appear to show that certain exercises are more effective for the lower abs than others. Scientists from the University of Nebraska Medical Center, for example, used electromyography (known simply as EMG) to measure abdominal muscle activity during various exercises, including the trunk curl, reverse curl, v-sit, and twist curl (these animated demonstrations aren't exactly the same as the exercises used in the study, but they're close enough) [2].
This study suggests that you can put greater emphasis on the upper or lower abdominals depending on the exercise you do. But it certainly doesn't show that you can work the lower and upper rectus abdominis separately. More interesting still, Professor Stuart McGill, an expert in spine function at the University of Waterloo in Canada, points out that a distinct upper and lower rectus abdominis does not exist in most people [1]. "There’s a muscle called pyramidalius, which is a lower muscle that overlays the bottom beads of rectus, but only in some people - it's an optional muscle," says McGill. In other words, those using EMG who claim there is an upper and lower rectus abdominis might simply be monitoring pyramidalius. I usually train my abs twice a week, using a variety of different exercises. In one workout, for example, I might do cable woodchops, hanging leg raises and standing cable crunches. In the next workout, I'll use a few different exercises, such as barbell rollouts or swiss ball reverse curls. I also believe that all the talk about the "upper" and "lower" abs ignores what is probably the most important part of getting your abs to show. "The truth is, getting six-pack 'killer' abs has almost nothing to do with training," writes Tom Venuto, author of Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle. "It has everything to do with low body fat." If you've seen pictures of Tom, you'll know he has some of the best abs in the business. "Some people might argue that I was just blessed with good genetics in the ab department, which may be true," says Tom. "But based on my experience with others who have less favorable genetics, I still believe that developing the abdominal muscles is easy. The hardest part is getting your body fat low enough for your abs to show." - Christian Finn Reference 1. 1. Lehman, G.J., & McGill, S.M. (2001). Quantification of the differences in electromyographic activity magnitude between the upper and lower portions of the rectus abdominis muscle during selected trunk exercises. Physical Therapy, 81, 1096-1101 2. Willett, G.M., Hyde, J.E., Uhrlaub, M.B., Wendel, C.L., & Karst, G.M. (2001). Relative activity of abdominal muscles during commonly prescribed strengthening exercises. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 15, 480–485
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