Abstract
All abdominal muscles, including the transverse abdominis (TrA), should be modulated to improve core stability. This study aimed to investigate easier and more effective core exercise methods by comparing thickness changes in the TrA, internal oblique (IO), external oblique (EO), and rectus abdominis (RA) muscles during the abdominal draw-in maneuver (ADIM) and maximum abdominal contraction maneuver (MACM). Thirty healthy subjects who participated in this study underwent ADIM and MACM three times in random order. We measured the abdominal muscle thickness during ADIM and MACM using ultrasonography and compared the changes in the thickness of TrA, IO, EO, and RA muscles using a paired t-test. Significant differences were observed in the thicknesses of all the abdominal muscles between the ADIM and MACM groups (p < 0.05). The MACM immediately increased the thickness of the TrA (p < 0.001, effect size (ES) = 0.931), IO (p = 0.001, ES = 0.761), EO (p = 0.008, ES = 0.415), and RA (p < 0.001, ES = 0.767) muscles. These results suggest that MACM is useful for immediately increasing the thickness of TrA, IO, EO, and RA muscles and may contribute to the clinical effect of simultaneous contractions on the changes in abdominal muscle thickness.
Highlights
Previous studies have found that the transverse abdominis (TrA) and internal oblique (IO) muscles are not activated separately and that simultaneous contraction occurs [6,7]
We found that the maximum abdominal contraction maneuver (MACM) significantly increased the thickness of the TrA, IO, external oblique (EO), and rectus abdominis (RA) muscles compared to that in the abdominal draw-in maneuver (ADIM)
These results suggest that the MACM is more favorable in increasing core stability and abdominal pressure, and its superiority is atfavorable corethicknesses stability and abdominal pressure, and itsprobably superiority is at-by tributed in to increasing the increased of all the abdominal muscles, caused tributed to the increased thicknesses of all the abdominal muscles, probably caused by hiprehip adduction accompanied by abdominal muscle co-contraction
Summary
Core stability is the cooperative contraction and coordination modulation of a group of muscles in the body, the abdomen in the front, the spine muscles at the back, the diaphragm on top, and the pelvic floor muscles at the bottom [1,2]. The transverse abdominis (TrA), internal oblique (IO), external oblique (EO), and rectus abdominis (RA) muscles play important roles in core stability during body movements and weight bearing [4,5]. Previous studies have found that the TrA and IO muscles are not activated separately and that simultaneous contraction occurs [6,7]. All abdominal muscles, including the TrA, should be regulated to improve core stability [8,9,10]
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