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Abdominal exercises are those that affect the abdominal muscles (colloquially known as the stomach muscles).
[edit] Breakdowns
The anterior abdominal wall is made up of 4 muscles-- the rectus abdominus muscle, the internal and external obliques, and the transversus abdominus.
[edit] Effectiveness of abdominal exercises
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: [1]
Activity in rectus abdominus
| exercise |
mean
activity |
| 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
activity |
| 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 |
118% |
| Ab roller |
101% |
| Traditional crunch |
100% |
| Exercise tubing pull |
77% |
| Ab rocker |
74% |
|
[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. A study of twelve exercises concluded that no single exercise covered all abdominal muscles with high intensity and low compression. [2]
- 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
|
[edit] References
- ^ Mark Anders; Peter Francis, Ph.D., Jennifer Davis, M.A (2001). "New Study Puts the Crunch on Ineffective Ab Exercises". ACE fitnessmatters.
- ^ 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.
[edit] External links
