The purpose of this study was to determine the relative electromyographic (EMG) activity of the upper and lower rectus abdominis and the external oblique muscles during 5 commonly performed abdominal strengthening exercises. Twenty-five healthy subjects participated in the study. EMG data were collected under isometric and dynamic conditions. The reverse curl resulted in the greatest amount of lower rectus activity, the v-sit and reverse curl exercises resulted in the greatest amount of external oblique activity, and the trunk curl, reverse curl, trunk curl with a twist, and v-sit all resulted in similar amounts of upper rectus EMG activity. The vacuum exercise resulted in moderate levels of external oblique EMG activity but very low levels of activity in the rectus abdominis. Our findings support the concept that abdominal strengthening exercises can differentially activate various abdominal muscle groups, but contradict some traditionally held assumptions regarding the effects of specific exercises.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 26 October 2021.
All research outputs
#10,710,787
of 34,358,242 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research
#4,311
of 7,363 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#26,729
of 66,464 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research
#4
of 7 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,358,242 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 67th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 7,363 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 21.3. This one is in the 40th percentile – i.e., 40% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 66,464 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 58% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 7 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than 3 of them.
