In response to the various questions I get asked about how best to train/tone/flatten your abdominal muscles I thought I would add a few pertinent comments from one of my fave fitness people – Mr Alwyn Cosgrove.

Alwyn’s latest book (written with Mr Lou Schuler) is a brilliant training guide for anyone and I thoroughly recommend it. It is called ‘New Rules of Lifting for Abs’ and covers a range of topics around core conditioning including specific exercises and nutritional advice.

Here are some of their key rules:

1. The most important role of your abdominal muscles is to protect your spine – your abdominal muscles provide the support structure for your whole body so that it can carry out every day movements that you ask it to
2. You can’t protect your spine by doing exercises that damage it – spine bending exercises (such as traditional crunches) offer more potential risk than reward and there are better ways to develop abdominal strength, stability and endurance without putting your spine at risk
3. The size of your abdominals doesn’t matter – having bigger abdominal muscles does not mean that they offer more stability for your spine
4. The appearance of your mid-section doesn’t matter either – function is more important than appearance and a rippling six pack does not always indicate core stability and strength; it is possible to have a strong, healthy, stable core without cover-model abs!
5. Your core includes all the muscles that attach to your hips, pelvis and lower back – so that would be:
   • the four layers of the abdominals (rectus abdominis, external and internal obliques and transverse abdominis)
   • hip flexors
   • hip extensors (glutes and hamstrings)
   • spine extensors (spinal erectors, quadratus lumborum)
   • hip adductors (inner thighs)
   • hip abductors (outer thighs)
   • multifidus
   • latissimus dorsi All these muscles have differing roles but all have a role to play. Some directly stabilise the spine; others allow sideways movement and rotation; others allow forward flexion and backward extension and other provide power and strength
6. The crunch is NOT a core exercise – it uses only the superficial layers of muscle and flexes the spine…
7. Your spine is already flexed, and flexing it more just makes it worse – most people spend a good deal of their day hunched over a desk or steering wheel and end it slouched on a sofa so they will naturally tend to develop a flattened lower back and shoulders which roll forwards. If your spine is in this flexed position anyway, why would you want to make it worse by performing crunches?!

So, if we shouldn’t be doing crunches, what should we be doing to strengthen our core muscles?

Alwyn suggests three categories of core exercises:

• Stabilisation exercises
  • the aim of these is to develop static stability by using your deepest core muscles to generate low-levels of force for increasingly challenging amounts of time
  • the muscles are predominantly slow-twitch fibres
  • the purpose is to develop muscle endurance
  • examples include various plank options, v-sits and dead bugs
• Dynamic stabilisation exercises  
  • these exercises involve moving one or more limbs while keeping your spine in its neutral position, ie. you stabilise around your mid-section while moving another part of the body
  • this uses more fast-twitch muscles fibres and uses more muscle fibres overall as other limbs will be involved
  • examples include roll-outs, sliding movements, stork stance, plank with additional movements
• Integrated stabilisation exercises
  • these exercises involve a movement elsewhere in the body which also requires core stabilisation and therefore they closely resemble everyday movements such as picking up the shopping, carrying a child or digging the garden
  • examples may include a one arm chest press or a single leg bicep curl
  • to an observer it may not seem that you are exercising your core muscles as the prime mover will be the part of your body holding the weight, but the participant will certainly feel their core muscles in use

 Hopefully this has given you a bit of useful information about the role of your abdominal muscles as well as an insight into why I choose the exercises I do for your bootcamp, class and personal training sessions.

I try to incorporate elements of each core exercise category wherever possible so that even when you don’t feel that you have worked your abs, they will still be getting stronger, fitter and more effective in doing their job.

Why not get yourself a copy of ‘The New Rules of Lifting for Abs’ if you want further information, a wide range of exercises for you to try at home and a host of other useful stuff?

 Source:

‘The New Rules of Lifting for Abs’ by Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove