Anatomy of Abdominal Muscles

First of all, everyone in this world has abs. Ask any student of college anatomy that has opened up a human body and analyzed what is inside. They will tell you that every human subject had abs.

So if we all have abs, then how come we can't see them? The reason for that is that there is a wall of fat that is preventing them from being visible. To have the best-looking six pack abs, one needs to exercise them correctly and understand abdominal anatomy.

There are four main muscle groups that make up the full abdominal wall:

Rectus Abdominis Function & Exercises

The rectus abdominis is the actual visible six pack abs that you see in someone with well-developed abs and a low body fat percentage. This is the largest abdominal muscle and runs from your breastbone to your pubic bone, a few inches below your belly button.

The Rectus abdominis is a long flat muscle, which extends along the whole length of the front of the abdomen. Its function is to pull the upper torso towards the hips when the body is only slightly flexed at the waist.

This is the reason why if you are doing a sit up,, any additional torso movement done past the initial 30 degrees from the floor will not stimulate the abs; instead the hips will be the ones that will complete the movement. Because of this, partial sit ups performed with the torso moving up to 30 degrees and ab crunches are great allies in our quest to achieve great abs.

Since the floor only provides a flat surface, not only your abs will not get maximal stimulation, but also they will not learn how to properly contract and protect your back when your body is bent backwards.

The only way to get around this is by investing in a swiss ball, this will allow you to get the necessary backwards bend that your torso needs in order to maximally stimulate your abs. So because of this, crunches performed on an exercise ball are the way in which experts recommend you to perform this exercise. Click here to get your exercise ball.

Since the rectus abdominis also has muscles in the lower region that help maintain proper postural alignment, it becomes necessary to include reverse crunches performed on the swiss ball (make sure that you hold to a stationary sturdy object) as this exercise will allow you to go below the neutral (flat) position. Another good lower abdominal exercise is the hanging leg raises. The key for maximal stimulation in this exercise is to roll the pelvis slightly backwards at the beginning of the movement.

The external obliques are the muscles at the sides of the waist. The external oblique complex actually consists of three layers of muscles: the internal obliques, the transverse obliques and external obliques. Together, these muscles contract to tilt the torso, as well as twist it, from side to side.

While a fitness person would not want massive obliques as this would take away from symmetry and give the illusion of a thick waist, these muscles do need to be trained in order to maintain ideal postural alignment. A great exercise for these muscles is the side bends performed on a swiss ball. Another exercise that also needs to be performed for these muscles in order to exercise its rotating capabilities are the Russian Twists.

Intercostal muscles are several groups of muscles that run between the ribs, and show as bands of muscle angling downward in the sides of the rib cage and the upper abdomen. The intercostals come into play by flexing the torso and causing it to twist, so doing any type of twisting crunch on a swiss ball will stimulate this group maximally.

The serratus anterior muscles are the finger–like strands of muscle on the rib cage between the front abs and the lats. Their job is to depress the rib cage and also assist in bringing the upper arms from a position pointing directly up from the shoulders to one pointing directly below the shoulders. A good exercise that will stimulate these muscles is the one arm cable crunches (using an overhead pulley).

Stop wasting so much of your time focusing on sit ups, crunches, leg raises, and all those silly worthless ab contraptions in your efforts to try to develop 6 pack abs. What you really need to focus on is burning off the extra fat that is covering them up. If you want to melt off body fat in the most rapid fashion possible, stick to high intensity, interval-based cardio lasting in the range of 10-20 minutes and effective full body training routine that maximizes both your metabolic response and your hormonal response to your workouts.