So Just How Many Abs Do You Have?

If you talk to more than one fitness expert, you may get confused. It seems that they just can't agree on whether only one set of abs exists, or if your body is blessed with both upper and lower abs.

And if you do have both upper and lower abs, do you have to exercise them separately in order to obtain -- and maintain that "killer" six pack look? Good questions all of them!

Well, some do say you have two sets. Others say that you only have one muscle. That six-pack look that everyone strives for is really nothing more than the result of bands of connective tissue which cut into your rectus abdominis. They say that there's absolutely no need to perform separate exercises for this area.

Recent clinical exercise studies do little to dispel the controversy. Studies now show that some exercises actually are more effective for those "lower abs" than others. Are you totally confused yet? Join the club.

Here's the deal. Researchers from the University of Nebraska medical Center used what's called electromyography -- thankfully shortened to EMG -- to measure abdominal muscle activity during specific exercises. The exercises tested include the trunk curl, the reverse curl, v-sit as well as the twist curl.

Of the four exercises "tested", the reverse curl actually produced the greatest amount of activity in the lower abs. Similarly, the other three exercises resulted in similar amounts of activity in the upper abdominal area.

This clearly suggests that, depending on your exercises, you really can target your upper or lower abs. What is doesn't demonstrate though is that you can actually work the lower and upper rectus abdominis areas separately.

Enter Stuart McGill - Spine Expert

Prof. Stuart McGill, an expert in the functioning of the spine at the University of Waterloo, in Canada. He claims that separate muscles for these areas really don't exist -- at least not in most people.

And now he's going to muddy the water some by talking about a potential third muscle (or wait, would that be second muscle?). "There's a muscle called pyramidalius," he explains, ". . . a lower muscle that overlays the bottom beads of rectus."

Now here's the catch. It's found only in some individuals, not in everyone. McGill calls it an "optional" muscle.

So, to clarify this a little, let's make some of the results of the study we read about a little more distinct. Those individuals whose "lower abs" benefited from specific exercises may simply have been working this "optional" pyramidalius muscle.

According to McGill, there really is no need to target either the lower or the upper abs. Now, let's go one step further. Tom Venuto, author of the book Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle, agrees with McGill, for slightly different reasons.

Whether you have one, two or three muscles in that area is less relevant, he says, than with how "low your body fat" is. Of course, with a body like Venuto's he can afford to say that. "Some people might argue that I was just blessed with good genetics," Venuto offers.

"And that might be true," he concedes. But then he points to his many clients and others he has seen make massive progress. "But based on my experience with others who have less favorable genetics, I still believe that developing the abdominal muscles is easy."

"The hardest part is getting your body fat low enough for your abs to show."

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