It’s Pronounced ab DO men

Patrick Helm - SnootyFoxImages

You are told, strengthen your abdomen and you think, no problem, I am toned.  Or you are one of those who feels hopeless, knowing that no matter what you try, that area will never respond to your efforts.   You know, you have tried.  Or maybe you are not quite hopeless, you could build strength and develop great muscle tone, if only you would do the work.  What should you do to strengthen the abdomen?  When did you learn what works most effectively?  What do you know about your belly? 

      The rectus abdominus flexes the trunk (bends it forward).  The internal and external abdominal obliques and transversus abdominis muscles flex the trunk and bend the trunk laterally (sideways).  These muscles are innervated by intercostal nerves 7-11, subcostal, iliohypogastric and ilioinguinal nerves (the rectus receives innervation from the intercostals and the subcostal alone).  When you contract these muscles, it is the obliques and transverus muscles that flatten the abdomen (bring your front toward your back).  The rectus muscle brings the top toward the bottom (the chest toward the pelvis).

        Crunches are popular, portable, affordable and accessible but are they effective?  If done correctly, they can be.  Yet there are limitations.  It is difficult to exercise all the fibers of each abdominal muscle doing only crunches.  The abdominal muscles are large and cover a lot of body surface area.  To exercise them efficiently, one has to accomplish full extension and contraction at some point during the motion to actually strengthen the fibers of the target muscle.  When lying on the floor, the floor itself limits your extension to zero degrees when you might benefit from a starting point of a bit more (slight trunk hyperextension).    One cannot bend back past the floor.   And crunches are not a true functional motion, unless you are a wrestler, or unless you spend an unusual amount of time getting out of bed or up off a floor.  More effective are exercises that work the muscles through longer ranges of motion, against gravity, in more functional positions, such as standing or sitting.  Motion in all planes around a central axis will assure development of all the abdominal muscles as well as the accessory muscles.   The best way to exercise the abdominal muscles is to combine simple single or multiple plane exercises during your normal routine.  You can do the crunches on a stability ball increasing your range of motion beyond that possible on the floor, but you must be aware of your body form!  Then changing your plane of motion, and performing a torso twist will also work the obliques (as well as a few leg muscles).   

     Simple side bending can be done with or without weights (free weights, or at a cable apparatus) to work the internal and external oblique muscles. 

You can use a cable apparatus to perform the torso twist move as well.  There are benefits to varying the way you work the muscles since in life you use the muscles for so many different functions (for motion and for stability). 

     The list of existing known abdominal exercises is long, and most are reasonably effective.  The key is performing any exercise correctly.  Most people do not use their abdominal muscles as well as they should when doing crunches or other “abdominal” exercises, wasting a lot of time and energy and sometimes doing some real harm.  You have to learn to use the muscle you are targeting in isolation when you exercise (when you are weight or strength training, anyway).  This is extremely important when targeting the abdominal muscles.  Otherwise you use the neck, back or legs instead.  If you are unsure if you can isolate your abdominal muscles during a crunch try this exercise.  I call it “Belly, Butt, Back of the Legs” (it is my own creation and could use a better name, I know).  The starting position has you lying on the floor, knees bent, feet flat on the floor with arms at your side.  Take a deep breath, and as you exhale, squeeze your belly, and only your belly sucking it in as deeply as you can toward the floor (nothing else moves), then relax.  Next take a deep breath and as you exhale, contract your buttocks, as tightly as you can (but nothing else moves-keep your legs and belly soft) and then relax.  Finally take another deep breath, and as you exhale, contract the back of the legs (the hamstrings, keeping the buttocks and belly soft) and then relax.  This usually takes some practice, if you have never thought about using these body parts in isolation before.  And if you are having a hard time doing this, you are probably contracting both the buttocks and the back of the legs every time you do a crunch, and this is wrong.  And, you are also probably using the low back muscles for part if not most of the motion of your crunch.    If you are, this would mean that for every crunch you do, you are working your abdominal muscles a lot less than 50% of your effort.    Ok, I am making a lot of presumptions here but this is a general statement and I get no individual feedback through this venue, but I think you get the point I am making?! 

           When starting a crunch, or any abdominal exercise from a supine position (lying on your back), you should start by first inhaling, and as you exhale, before you move anything, start contracting the abdomen.          

                Once the abdominal muscles have begun to contract (we in “the biz” refer to this as the muscles being engaged) start moving. In the case of a crunch, the head, neck, shoulders and upper trunk should all fold up off the floor in one piece.  Yes, I said fold, not roll.  The motion is a simple lift upwards.  Okay, I think I have exhausted the crunch in words.  Need anything more and I will just have to show you.  There is more to know but I cannot imagine you wish to read anything more on this subject right now. Come back again!