This is one of the most asked question. Even many of you don’t have an answer to this question. Experts debate the benefits of exercise for lower abs.  Does everybody have lower abs? Can you really target them by performing specific exercise? The questions look simple but the answers may surprise you.

How many abs muscles are there?

Can you target each of them?

Does that really work?

I have heard answers like “yes, there are separate upper and lower abs”. Even some of the trainers I know gave the same answer. Technically this is not correct. Abdominal muscle, i.e. Rectus abdominis is a large muscle in the front of the abdomen that assists in the regular breathing movement and supports the muscles of the spine while lifting and keeping abdominal organs such as the intestines in place.

So not the question “does targeting upper and lower abdominals makes a difference?”

The debate is going on this question. But research shows that some workouts do emphasize more on the lower section of your abdominal i.e. lower abs and some emphasize more on your upper abs.

However an interesting thing to note is that according to a recent research, that not all humans have a distinctly separate lower abdominal muscle, called the pyramidalis. This means that targeting lower abdomen may only be effective to 80% of people who have this muscle.

What I recommend is include different movements which work on your upper abs, lower abs and oblique. For example you can do exercises like:

Hanging knee lifts

Reverse crunches

Crunches

Cable crunches

Russian twists

Side bends

There are many more exercises than what I mentioned here. So do you have pyramidalis and can you target that? The debate goes on. But the most important thing to get six pack abs is proper diet. Even if you are among those 80 % with pyramidalis muscle it is useless to do 100s of reverse crunches or any other exercise unless your body fat is low. If you are the one who is striving hard to get that lower abs visible and after reading this article you started thinking that maybe you don’t have that muscle than that may not be the case. Your lower abs might be covered by a thin layer of fat which is why your lower abs are not visible.

So eat right, workout properly keep your fat percentage low and even you will have that eight pack abs.

See larger image AB Force Slide - Abdominal Exercise Equipment AS SEEN ON TV (Health and Beauty)

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