All other factors being equal, which of these three options would be the most effective in the attempt to reduce abdominal fat?

When I give my Strength Training 101 presentation to new recruits at the St. Louis Police Academy, one of the questions I hit them with is this:

All other factors being equal, which of these three options would be the most effective in the attempt to reduce abdominal fat?

1. Abdominal crunches – two sets of 30 repetitions to muscular fatigue
2. Abdominal crunches – four sets of 30 repetitions to muscular fatigue.
3. Leg Press – two sets of 20 repetitions to muscular fatigue.

Inevitably, most choose the second option, a few pick option one, and rarely does anyone opt for the leg press choice. After all, if two sets of an abdominal exercise are effective, then doubling the effort must be better, right? The truth is option three is the correct answer, which completely stuns them.

Hey Mr. Kelso, I can’t recall seeing a late-night infomercial with some dude on a leg press machine trying to shred abdominal fat.

Performing two demanding sets of leg presses utilizes more energy as compared to two or four demanding sets of abdominal exercises. More muscle tissue is involved – thus ultimately more calories are burned – so it is the best option, all other factors being equal. Remember, to lose body fat, a calorie deficit must exist. Additionally, one cannot spot reduce body fat!

Infomercials and ignorance aside, a study was conducted at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville to determine the effect of abdominal exercises on abdominal fat. 24 sedentary people (14 men and 10 women) between the ages of 18 and 40 years were randomly assigned to one of the following two groups: control group (CG) or abdominal exercise group (AG).

Anthropometrics, body composition, and abdominal muscular endurance were tested before and after training. The AG performed two sets of 10 repetitions on seven abdominal exercises, five days per week for six weeks. The CG received no intervention, and all participants maintained a similar diet throughout the study.

The results of the study showed… hang on now…  are you sitting down? … Ready?

There was no signigicant effect of abdominal exercises on body weight, body fat, android fat percentage, android fat, abdominal circumference, abdominal skinfold and suprailiac skinfold measurements.

Their epic conclusion was this: six weeks of abdominal exercise training by itself was not sufficient to reduce abdominal subcutaneous fat and other measures of body composition.

However, abdominal exercise training did significantly improved muscular endurance to a greater extent than the CG. On the post-test, the AG performed a significantly greater amount of curl-up repetitions (47 ± 13) compared to the CG (32 ± 9).

Wow!

Seriously, will we ever arrive at the day when those in the training world completely understand abdominal exercises are a poor choice for fat reduction? Probably not, as long as new abdominal devices and programs keep coming down the infomercial turnpike.

Fat reduction tutorial, time immemorial:

1. Create a calorie deficit. Eat better foods.
2. Perform high calorie-demand exercise. Involve the large muscles of the body.
3. Train your abdominals sensibly, but understand you are working MUSCLE, not fat.
4. Stay up late at night so you can laugh at the latest abdominal gizmo infomercial.

The post You Cannot Crunch Your Way to Abs: Science Says So appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Male or female – doing sit-ups is not going to get you greater ab definition.

The rectus abdominis is the “abs” muscle: a paired muscle that runs vertically on each side of the anterior wall of the abdomen, separated by a band of connective tissue. Tendinous intersections run across the muscle horizontally, giving the muscle eight distinct looking muscle bellies. We all refer to the rectus abdominis as a six pack, when in fact, an eight pack is structurally a much more apt description. Sit-ups have become the go-to exercise for training the abs because they work the rectus abdominis. But the reason the full eight-pack isn’t visible on most athletes who do them is because sit-ups over-engage the hip flexors, neglecting the lower abdominal muscles below.

Why Sit-Ups Don’t Work

The rectus abdominis are initially engaged in the sit-up, but as you rise higher throughout the sit-up movement, the hip flexors take over. The movement particularly over-engages the hip flexors when the feet are lodged under something to hold them in place. Another common group of exercises used to target the lower abs are knee-ups and hanging leg raises. More often than not, these exercises also engage the stronger hip flexors, rather than the lower aspects of the rectus abdominis.

5 Exercises for Fully Defined Ab Muscles

The key to engaging the rectus abdominis all the way through to target the lower muscles near your pelvis is to keep your hips isolated. Your lower abdominals need to be contracted the entire time and your transverse abdominis needs to be braced to support your spine. This allows you to focus on performing the crunch movement and engaging your rectus abdominals all the way through.

Perform the five exercises below to fully engage the lower portion of the rectus abdominis, isolate the hips, and get well on your way to achieving fully defined abs.

1. Angry Cat, Happy Cat

This is a great exercise if you’re just getting started.

• Start on your hands and knees with the knees in line with the hips and the hands in line with the shoulders.
• Curl your spine by crunching your abs hard (hold for 3 seconds), then arch your back (hold for another 3 seconds).
• Perform 20 repetitions.

2. Baby Crunches

• Activate your transverse abs by pressing the middle of your back into the floor.
• Perform small crunches and keep your shoulders off the floor or mat. Never allow your abdominals to relax.
• Perform 20 repetitions.

3. Crunches on Medicine Ball

• Roll down the ball until only your upper back is supported.
• Engage your transverse abs and glutes by keeping your hips up.
• Perform small crunches while keeping your hips up the entire time. Don’t drop your hips – if you do, as you crunch up you will not be contracting your lower rectus abdominis, transverse abdominis, or your glutes.
• Perform 20 repetitions of each.

4. Floor Crunches with Raised Legs

This is a great exercise to engage the lower abs as they need to work to stabilize the hips since your feet are not resting on the floor.

• Activate your transverse abs by pressing the middle of your back into the floor.
• Perform small crunches and keep your shoulders off the floor or mat. Never allow your abdominals to relax.
• Perform 20 repetitions.

5. Toes to the Ceiling

This is a pretty challenging exercise. The challenge is to be able to elevate your toes towards the ceiling without creating momentum or swinging your legs towards you.

• Activate your transverse abs by pressing the middle of your back into the floor and lift shoulders off the floor or mat.
• By contracting your lower abs, lift your toes towards to ceiling. These movements should be small since you are only engaging your lower abs to perform the movement.
• Never allow your abdominals to relax.
• Perform 20 repetitions.

You’re Risking Muscular Imbalance, Too

Overuse of the hip flexors explains why people who train a lot and work out super hard only ever have the top four sections of their abs showing. In their so-called specific exercises, the lower four sections aren’t being engaged – instead, the hip flexors are doing the work. Over time, this can also cause postural and lower back issues due to muscular strength imbalances.

Don’t let it be you. Incorporate these five exercises into your training routine and you’ll be well on your way to the ab definition you’re looking for.

Want more from your core? Brace yourself for some great lifting:

6 Core Exercises to Strengthen the Squat for Female Athletes

The post 5 Exercises for Fully Defined Ab Muscles appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Every time that I do this workout, there is always someone in the class who asks, “Why do I need an AbMat?” This is usually followed by a discussion as to what shorts or pants students have worn and how bad their monkey-butt is going to be when they are finished. What’s sad is that no one can seem to truly answer this elusive question. Why do we need an AbMat? And for goodness’ sakes, which way do we turn it?

Quick Anatomy Lesson: Your Abdominal Muscles

Before we even get into the reason for the AbMat, let’s talk about the abdominal muscles. Yes, they’re super hot and sexy when developed, and we all want them without having to give up beer and gluten. (Good luck with that.) But there’s some basic anatomy that needs to be understood. The anterior and lateral trunk muscles function in multiple ways: they support the abdominal viscera (that’s what holds your insides together), breathing, and they are concerned with trunk movements of flexion, lateral bending, and rotation. Perhaps one of the most fascinating parts of this design is that the fibers in different layers run in different directions, contributing to their gross strength.

The rectus abdominis is the most superficial of these muscles and attaches the ribcage to the pelvis. Its primary role is trunk flexion. The internal and external obliques also attach the ribs to the pelvis, and are responsible for rotation and side bending of the trunk. There is another muscle, and it’s one that like the gluteus medius goes on vacation frequently. It’s called the transverse abdominis. This muscle also connects the ribs to the pelvis, but has a line of application much like a weight belt. It’s fibers run on the horizontal and it is responsible for abdominal compression during movement.

As I have described with other muscles in other articles, most of our muscles work in three planes of motion. By functioning in three planes of movement, a muscle group can stabilize in one plane and exert movement in another.

What Happens in a Sit Up

In a sit up, like any other movement we do, it is imperative that our body moves through a complete and full range of motion. What this means is that if you lie on the floor, your spine is in a neutral position, or perhaps has a little flexion. To get the most out of a sit up, the abdominals must go from a position of maximal length to a position of minimal length. This is achieved by creating two pivot points, one in the spine and another in the pelvis. The lumbar spine should be extended fifteen to thirty degrees, and the pelvis should be in an anterior tilt of ten to fifteen degrees.

Image courtesy of Koch, Blom, and Jacob. Sit Ups Revisited, 2004.

What happens next is nothing short of amazing human movement. A group of fully-extended muscles with attachments at two joints creates tension. When the individual flexes the trunk from that position, the muscle is able to generate a large amount of power and force. We like that, and it makes us stronger.

The Beauty of the AbMat

The AbMat, when placed under the lumbar spine with the higher portion towards your bum creates this beautiful environment for the abdominals to move through their full and available range of motion. It allows for the extension needed in the lumbar spine and the anterior tilt in the pelvis, thereby giving the abdominal muscles what they yearn for – full range, elongation, and forceful contraction.

As I was searching the literature for this article, I came across several discussions damning the AbMat sit up. I think one of them listed the movement as the “most worthless CrossFit exercises ever” or something. But let me ask you this, do you think that Globo Gym Joe can come into a CrossFit box and hop on a glute-ham developer (GHD) and do a correct GHD sit up? Didn’t think so. The AbMat sit up is wonderful to develop full spinal range of motion abdominal strength so that a person can start to think about getting on a GHD. It also helps develop cursory strength for toes-to-bar and knees-to-elbows, and gets the abdominals thinking about midline stability during barbell movements and pretty much everything else we do.

Use your AbMat correctly (but be aware of the type of pants you choose to wear because no one likes monkey-butt) and get yourself midline strong. When the zombies come out, you’ll be happy you used an AbMat. Globo Gym Joe isn’t going to know how to fight them with his crunches and partial range of motion bicep curls.

References:

1. Smith, Weiss, and Lehmkuhl. Brunnstrom’s Clinical Kinesiology. F.A. Davis. 1983.

2. Koch, Blom, and Jacob.Sit Ups Revisited, 2004.

Photo 1 courtesy of CrossFit Impulse.

Anatomy chart by OpenStax College [CC-BY-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

The post The AbMat Is Awesome – Here’s Why appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

So, what’s the deal with all this core talk?

First of all, there isn’t one universal definition of what exactly the core is. Is it solely the abdominals, obliques, and lumbar (low back) muscles? Does it include the gluteals and thoracic (mid-back) muscles? What about the “core” regarding the intricate connection between the upper body and lower when a transfer of force or power is an issue?

No one can truly define EXACTLY what the core is, but at least we know the muscles at, near, or around the core are probably important due to all the attention given to it. That stated – and more practically – what specific exercises should be done to improve core ability, stability, functionality, transferability, ad nauseam? It can be completely mystifying, but it does not have to be that way.

In terms of the core and its relationsip to athletic performance, a study at Indiana State University attempted to develop:

1. A functional field test to assess the role of core musculature and its impact on sport performance with athletes as subjects.
2. A functional field test to assess how the core can transfer forces from the lower body to the upper body.

Here are the details:

25 Division I college football players performed medicine ball throws from these positions:

• Dynamic – forward, reverse, right, and left.
• Static – forward, reverse, right, and left.

The results were compared to these athletic performance measures:

• 1 repetition maximum (1RM) squat
• Squat @ kilograms/body weight
• 1RM bench press
• Bench press @ kilograms/body weight
• Countermovement vertical jump (CMJ)
• 40-yard dash
• Pro agility test
• Push press

They discovered several positive correlations between the different medicine ball throws and the performance measures. This is not surprising because all other factors being equal, the stronger, quicker, and faster one is, the greater their potential to throw a medicine ball. Thus, improved total body “ability” is paramount beyond the core only.

They concluded, therefore, that core strength has a significant effect on an athlete’s ability to develop and transfer forces to the limbs.

In addition, they surmised that the static plank exercise is not a viable core exercise because it is non-functional; athletes never replicate that position in competition. I do not know how they determined that from this study, and this is a completely different discussion because it entails the principles of motor learning and specificity.

Although this is just one of many studies on the core and its relationship on athletic performance, the take home message is very simple: because optimal athletic performance is contingent upon many factors – total body strength, quickness, speed, endurance, etc. – make sure your training program is comprehensive. Spend time training the core with time-proven flexion, extension, and rotational mid-section exercises, but don’t over-emphasize them at the expense of other exercises and physical qualities.

The post Core Strength and the Athlete: Keeping It in Perspective appeared first on Breaking Muscle.