I understand that it is impossible to work just one part of a muscle on it’s own. I have been told that when people say this works the “lower biceps” or “lower pecs” or “lower abs” they are mistaken. Fair enough.
But can you just clear this up for me - at the gym i hang from a bar and bring my knees up to my chest. This SEEMS to work my abs in a way i’ve never felt before. It DOES indeed SEEM to target my lower abdominals.
What is it actually doing? By the theory that i am hearing on here, doesn’t that mean that doing a crunch works the “lower” abs just as much? But i know it doesn’t. I don’t feel the burn there.
I was once told that any movement that brings your body up to your legs works your upper/middle abs, and any movement that brings your legs to your chest, works your lower/middle abs - what’s actually happening?
What it is actually doing is incorperating your hip flexors into the movement which are right below your abs. Virtually all ab exercises do this; some more than others. The exercise you described is almost entirely a hip flexor movement until your thighs and body form a 90 degree angle. After that, the abdominal muscles come into play. Of course the abs will be tight up until that point too, but that’s for stabilization purposes. On top of all that, the load being so great tugging at the bottom of the abdominal wall will cause the connective tissue there to become inflamed which will add the “feeling” of working your “lower abs”.
check out www.healthforlife.com and look at their Legandary Abs book. It talks about the diff exercises that target the abs and how to do ab exercises that do not get the hip flexors involed as much. They also use a technique called synergism which structures exercises in a certain way to get the biggest bennifit, For example when you work you lower abs your upper abs also are worked. So it would make sense to work you lower abs first and you upper abs last so you get a harder and better workout on your upper abs
That book actually blows. I’ve had it for a few years and even did some of the routines for close to a year. Big waste of time. The information in it is factually and scientifically unsound.
You are quite correct…you cannot work a part or a “section” of a muscle, especially in the abs which is actually one muscle belly. Ford has a great point…the connective tissues play a part. Hanging leg raises do activate the hip flexors, and you will notice this even more if you do leg raises with straight legs raising them to the front. Same thing with bench press…you are working the entire muscle belly, the different positions such as incline or decline don’t really target “sections” of the chest any more specifically. The only thing that is really changing is your pain receptors.
Hmmm. So is it impossible to concentrate different strands of muscles. My 2 quarms with this theory is this.
Your chest is made up of several different strands of muscles(look at any diagram) I agree that when you do any press excersise for the chest you are using the whole chest, but the concentration factor. How come when I do incline my chest pump is in the upper part of the of my chest, near the collar bone and when I do flat, my pum is more on the middle part by the nipple. Not only can I feel these “different pumps” but I can see them clothes on and off?
My second quarm is the hammer strength preacher curl where there is 3 different phases to concentration. The middle phase hits you all around(expected) but the upper and lower concentration phases are the ones, again, that I can see and feel. It really will get rock hard on the bottom and top comparebly to the middle excersises.
The stomach theory I understand, but I cant theororize the other muscles. Which leads me to my last question, Why would they put machines on the market and in gyms advertising they do the “certain part of muscle concentrating” if it is all bull huckey.
Well, as I said in my previous post, you are really only changing the receptors. As I’m sure you probably know, a muscle cannot contract partially…the fibers either work or they don’t, the variable is the degree to which the fibers need to fire, or the intensity. If it were possible to work only the “upper/lower” chest, it should stand to reason that there should be some mighty odd looking people in the gym. A know a few guys who decline a bit more than they can flat, but their chest development is even. Musculoskeletal leverage plays a part in the strength curve as well. Here’s a simple test…next time you are spotting someone in a decline/incline, if they will let you, place your hand on their pec as they work. I guarantee that you will feel the full muscle working. Emphasis may slightly change, but as stated before, a muscle does not know how to partially contract.
I haven’t worked with a Hammer preacher so I can’t answer this directly, but I can say that the bicep is supposed to be divided into “inner/outer” sections. But I have yet to hear “x exercise works only the outer head of the bicep”. Partial contraction and all that…just like different grips may change the emphasis on a tricep extension, but all three heads are working.
Well, yenhoi got that last one! Indeed, if advertisers were in the job of educating us truthfully, there would be a lot less products out there, especially in the fitness industry. Fitness advertisers love the fact that there are so many myths about the business, and are not going to do anything to change it. It’s all about the gimmick to get the dollar.
Sorry to beat this to death, but Im just trying to clarify, youre saying,
That you cannot work “only part” of a muscle but you can concentrate the stress on certain striations all the while the whole muscle is working but one part harder than the other.
Take for example a military press…most of the emphasis is on the front and medial heads with triceps as “secondary mover”, but EMG analysis has shown that the rear head does bear some of the work as well, just not as directly as in say a lat pulldown.
Don’t take my opinionated drivel as saying that certain exercises are useless…I’m not saying that by any means. I just take great personal enjoyment out of myth-busting.
But of course, knowing the fitness industry, they’ll totally “revolutionize” everything by saying something that is essentially recycled mythos from years ago like Weider supposedly “revolutioned” resistance training with “his” principles and everybody will be saying something else. I’d like to think I’ll be sticking to my guns though. The current science seems pretty solid.
I forgot the dollar amount I placed on it, but I hereby change it to $10 because I’m a poor college student.
$10 to anyone who can demonstrate to me that they can flex only part of their pecs thereby proving that there is a difference between “upper” and “lower.” Yes, the top half must be flexed while the bottom half remains soft and squshy (ewww).
This works for any muscle. If anyone can flex their lower biceps I would accept that, too.
Note, this doesn’t count for people who can make the left half of their six pack stick out (like the pics at www.maxalding.plus.com ). I think that has to do with abdominal pressure, not tension.
Other than that, the people here cleared everything up already so I have nothing else to say Good job guys!
What about force gradients? <u>Below is opinion and conjecture only:</u>
One thing about the abs and any muscles in general is that while you cannot isolate the forces in the ways that people think, there will be a force gradient over the entire muscle depending on the insertion and origin.
So just like a lever has more torque f a rther out, your muscles even though completely contracted can feel different amounts of torque depending on how far you move out along the muscle. And since your muscles, bones, etc. grow due to the forces they feel, it is possible that this gradient can cause the muscles to develop slightly differently.
The abdominis rectus, btw, is actually several muscle groups stringed together by the rectus sheath I think… that’s why you have a six pack and not 1 big ab muscle.
That’s my theory. It’s not about actually controlling and isolating which part of the muscles are doing the work, but rather what different parts of the entire muscle are feeling.
The confusion seems to be in what we consider working different parts of a muscle seperately. While I agree that the entire muscle is participating, different strands are doing more or less work. Therefore, targeting just means that you are working one part of a muscle more than other parts.
I think Isolating is the wrong word to use because it implies all and nothing. Targeting is preferable.
My thoughts have to agree with BSH and fmann. I am not suggesting that a certain part of a muscle can be flexed rather a certain part can be worked and “Concentrated” on to feel more torque. When flexed the muscles all recruit together(meaning all tri-cep, or all chest exct..) but with pressure working from different angles, you are able to raise your chest(incline).
Not being facetious - Is it all in my head that my pecs look way different after doing decline flies than after doing close-grip bench presses? And just different, not that one is better.
My thoughts have to agree with BSH and fmann. I am not suggesting that a certain part of a muscle can be flexed rather a certain part can be worked and “Concentrated” on to feel more torque. When flexed the muscles all recruit together(meaning all tri-cep, or all chest exct..) but with pressure working from different angles, you are able to raise your chest(incline).
Are you talking about the individual heads of a tricep being stressed differently on different exercises?
Good job guys!