what are some good upper ab workouts that some of you do?
Why just upper abs? Theres a whole load of ab exercises posted throughout the forums though.
‘upper abs’ are the easiest portion of the abs to train, basically any thing where you curl your rib cage to your pelvis.
Man,
Upper abs are important to prevent dissipation. Do some of dem weighted crunches
Surely it is now accepted that there is no distinction between upper and lower abs? It is all one muscle. You cannot contract only one portion of it.
Yo P,
It is shiftin da emphasis off one area. Study up bro.
Go USA
Yo, I think I mentioned this before, but get an ab wheel it really hits those abs.
Study up bro? You are kidding me? I repeat “it”- I am talking here about the rectus abdominis- is one muscle. Training the upper or lower part is a fallacy which belongs to body building folk lore such as building the outer pecs or lower biceps. Surely you are not arguing otherwise?
The rectus abdominis is one muscle but has many nerve innervations. You can contract one part while another section stabilizes so I believe that you can train different sections (upper, lower) of the rectus.
“Great Lower Ab Exercises” would be an even better Topic.
I know Paul Chek gets bashed a lot (especially on the old SuperTraining list) but tell me what you think of this?
INNERVATION OF THE ABDOMINAL WALL
The abdominal muscle group receives innervation from every segment of the spinal cord from T-5 all the way to L-1 (Figure 2). Now, to give you a perspective on the significance of this, most muscles in the body have only two sources of innervation - one primary and one secondary. For example, the deltoid is primarily innervated by C5 with secondary innervation by C6. This knowledge allows doctors and therapists to assess neurological function by testing specific muscles innervated predominantly by one segment. For example, the deltoid is commonly tested to assess the C5 nerve function.
This is such an important distinction to make because each nerve is a branch from a specific segment of the spinal cord. There, motor cells stimulate the nerve which then stimulates the muscles it feeds. The nerve cells in the spinal cord are stimulated by motor cells in the brain, which acts like the conductor of an orchestra.
Back to the Future of Abdominal Training
Paul Chek
Today’s world is ab crazy! Book stores are loaded with exercise books promising to flatten your abs, countless TV infomercials are selling hundreds of abdominal conditioning gimmicks guaranteeing “rock-hard” abs and every fitness magazine available has a monthly article focusing on ab training. People going to gyms apparently weren’t getting enough abdominal results from aerobics and sculpt classes so they invented “Ab Blast” classes; classes designed to torture your abs, and only your abs, for thirty minutes or more! As if that weren’t enough, there are companies trying to convince you that with the application of a special cream or use of an electrical gadget, you will flatten your abs in just a few minutes a day performing less work than ever!
Is all this necessary or even worth the time, money and effort? More importantly, does all this abdominal blasting have anything to do with improving performance in a functional environment (See article What Is Functional Exercise?)? To answer these questions, we must look at the role the abdominal musculature played in ensuring man’s survival while under selective evolutionary pressures.
DID CAVE MEN DO SITUPS?
Imagine primal man out on a hunt. He has been hunting for hours but, having no luck, decided to hit the dirt and knock out a few crunches to keep the abs looking good for the primal babes (Figure 1). Does this scenario seem very likely? I don’t think so!
Figure 1
The actions of the abdominal wall are quite complex indeed. It is common for us to think of the abdominals as muscles whose primary function is the aesthetics they provide in front of a mirror. This sort of thinking is analogous to thinking that a car is a box on wheels, the sun is merely a light source for earth, or that having a headache is an indication of an Aspirin deficiency! To appreciate both the complexity and capacity of the abdominal wall, we need to briefly look at how the abdominal muscles are innervated.
INNERVATION OF THE ABDOMINAL WALL
The abdominal muscle group receives innervation from every segment of the spinal cord from T-5 all the way to L-1 (Figure 2). Now, to give you a perspective on the significance of this, most muscles in the body have only two sources of innervation - one primary and one secondary. For example, the deltoid is primarily innervated by C5 with secondary innervation by C6. This knowledge allows doctors and therapists to assess neurological function by testing specific muscles innervated predominantly by one segment. For example, the deltoid is commonly tested to assess the C5 nerve function.
Figure 2
Each section of our spinal cord receives and sends information, acting as a brain and controlling each of the muscles it innervates.
This is such an important distinction to make because each nerve is a branch from a specific segment of the spinal cord. There, motor cells stimulate the nerve which then stimulates the muscles it feeds. The nerve cells in the spinal cord are stimulated by motor cells in the brain, which acts like the conductor of an orchestra (Figure 3).
Each section of the spinal cord acts like a brain with the respective nerve delivering it’s message to the muscle and specific muscle fiber it feeds. Therefore, considering that the abdominals have nine innervations per side coming from nine different spinal segments (brains), the abdominal muscles could be considered as having nine spinal brains directing and controlling them. Think of all the tasks you could carry out if you actually had nine brains in your head!
When one considers all the vital functions provided by the abdominal wall, including joint stability, visceral (organ) support, respiratory support, circulatory/immune system support and digestion/elimination system support, the necessity of such intricate innervation becomes obvious. "
Any comments would be appreciated.
Fluke -sorry but there is no basis to what you asserting. To say that you can contract part of a muscle while the other section “stabilises” (presumably does not contract?) imakes no sense at all.
Try the following article:
MUSCLE OR MYTH?
By Alice Lockridge MS PhysEd
Fitness instructor jargon perpetuates the misconception that “lower abdominals” is a muscle group. Because they believe the lower abdominal is a muscle, some instructors contend that "lower abs"need to be strengthened in some special way to attain a much-desired flat stomach.
The phrase “lower abdominals” implies that one of the abdominal wall muscles, the rectus abdominus, is lower than the others. This is not true. Each of the four-pairs of abdominal muscles has attachment sites on the pubic bones. No one of them is any lower than the others. And nothing lower than the pubis is part of the abdominal wall.
If the words “lower abdominals” refer to the lower half of the rectus abdominus, the implication is that the lower half of a muscle can contract without its upper half being affected. This is impossible. The structural construction of muscles won’t allow contraction of only part of a fiber. When a muscle shortens - the whole fiber, along its entire length, is shortening.
GET TO THE BASICS
To understand the abdominal muscles, it is important to understand the basics of all skeletal muscles. A muscle has at least two ends. These ends each attach directly, or by way of a tendon, to at least two separate bones. Each muscle crosses at least one joint. When the muscle contracts it either causes the joint between the two bones, to flex (bend) or extend (straighten). One end of the muscle, referred to as its origin, is usually stable and doesn’t move. The other end, called the insertion, usually is the end that moves when the muscle contacts.
The meaty part of the muscle (belly) is made of fibers that stretch from the origin to the insertion. The long fibers in the rectus abdominus muscle go from the origin (on the ribs and xiphoid process of the sternum) to the insertion site (on the pubic symphysis). A concentric contraction, during a curl-up, is performed as the two ends move toward each other. The lower end, which is heavier, remains stationary, and more of the motion is noticed from the upper end (chest area) moving toward the hips. For full range-of-motion to occur on each repetition of the exercise, the muscle relaxes and allows its two ends to move apart and to regain its resting length.
THE ALL OR NOTHING PRINCIPLE OF MUSCLE FIBER CONTRACTION
During contraction the two ends of the rectus abdominus muscle move toward each other, or one end can remain still while the other end moves toward it. They may switch duties, or they both may move toward the middle. But the entire length of the muscle fiber is always involved, regardless of which end is mobile. It’s all or nothing. There’s no isolation of just one half of the fiber.
The all-or-nothing principle pertains to the entire length of a muscle fiber, not to all the fibers of a muscle. One fiber may contract while a nearby fiber does not, but the fiber that is contracting is committed along its entire length. A muscle fiber cannot contract along only half its length.
Imagine a stretched rubber band representing the rectus abdominus. As the rubber band shortens to its resting length the entire band is involved in the shortening process. This is similar to the way the muscle contracts along its entire length. For one end of the muscle to move, it must be pulled upon from the anchored end at the origin site. Hence, the lower end of the abdominal muscle cannot contract without affecting the rest of the length of fiber.
Some believe exercises “for the lower abdominals” are those that make the bottom end of the abs move, like when the hips lift and the ribs remain stationary. This makes you “feel” the exercise below the waist where most people store some fat. Exercisers gladly try to feel the exertion near this spot because they believe that reducing will make the nearby fat be used up. This dangerous misconception perpetuates the belief you need to feel pain to gain effects.
If spot reducing is inherently linked to lower abdominal exercises then the entire concept is incorrect. Different exercises move either one or both ends of the rectus abdominus, but that movement does not denote fat above it is going to be used to fuel the movement. Nor does it mean that one particular end of the muscle is going to be strengthened or tightened more than the other.
Variety (for interest) is the only reason to switch exercises and emphasize either end of the muscle. The variety is nice but not essential.Moving through the full range of motion is the best way to strengthen any muscle there are only a limited number of ways to do it!.
All professional instructors need to apply these scientific principles to all of our Abdominal Wall Workouts and end erroneous “gym talk” about “lower abs”
There’s no such thing as Lower Abdominals!” © Alice Lockridge, MS PhysEd
There is some truth to being able to certain motor units and not others, but the rectus abdominis is not one of them. You can train the transverse abdominis to fire instead of the rectus abdominis, creating the effect a weight belt has, however specifically targeting certain fibers of an entire muscle is just like trying to “spot reduce”…only a myth.
ignore Paul Chek.
Abs (should really call them abdominal wall/ trunk muscles as rectus abdominis is only one of the muscles at the abdomen) Are worked by sprinting and other resistance exercises that don’t primarily target them.
E.g
any sprints (work the obliques especially)
any sort of squat or weightlifting exercise
also resistance exercises like (weighted) pull/chin ups, dumbbell rows (and others, those are just the best examples)
Remember there is no trunk flexion involved in sprinting so why train the abdomal wall muscles in that way (apart from maybe recovery)?
What is the reason for being able to devlop the upper area of the abs more (i.e. they are more visible) than the lower area? Are the lower ones smaller maybe?
I have used many people’s ideas and paul’s content was key to helping many of my sprinters years ago with improvements from his core program. true we never jumped on physioballs, but he has some stuff that is good. Just don’t trash someone…
why then some groups of athletes use 500reps per speed workout and up to 1000reps per tempo workout?
THe best “ab” exercise is a crunch with your glutes/hamstrings contracted. This is one of the few exercises where you abs do all the work. In conventional ab work your hip flexors take over. While this isn’t a problem for some people, for others who already have have super tight/strong hip flexors and weak glute/hams it is. If you don’t believe me try em out. Lay on the ground in normal crunch position w/ a pillow under ur back Extend your hips into the air and bring your shoulders off the ground. Try to syncrhonize the contraction of your abs and glutes. You can do these at a very fast pace (because you’ll only be able to rise a few inches) or slowly. If you can get twenty real reps of these without hurting than you are a stronger man than I.
it might have to do with the way you activate your abs, i.e., where you put more emphasis on (e.g., torso curls)
it might also be the case that they are used more in everyday life anyway…
you simply mean placing your pelvis in a “neutral” position? it works this way, yes, since not many activate their abs in this way… -if that’s what you mean…