Experimental program of abdominal exercises performed with load: an electromyographic study

• Grant number: 10/05330-0
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: August 01, 2010
• End date: July 31, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Physical Education
• Principal Investigator: Antonio Carlos de Moraes
• Grantee: Antonio Carlos de Moraes
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Educação Física (FEF). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The crunch exercise offers less compression in the spine on the lower back area when com-pare to the Sit-up exercise, however, the abdominal muscles are less activated. Thus, strate-gies that maximize the activation of the abdominal muscles during the crunch exercise are important to safely optimize the abdominal muscle training. The effectiveness of the extra-weight use on different exercises is well established on the literature. Furthermore, recently we showed the abdominal muscle activation with several extra-weight, however, studies showing the longitudinal effects of this kind of exercise are rare. This way, the present study aims to analyze the effects of 12 weeks abdominal muscles training with crunch exercise per-formed with extra-weight. Thirty university students from both genders with 18 to 25 years of age will be selected to participate in this study which will be randomized divided in two groups, the training group and the control group. The performance and the electromyography activity from Rectus Abdominis and Obliquus Externus will be monitored on three moments: pre, post eitgh and post 12 weeks of training. The training program will be consisted in three sessions per week with three sets of 30 repetitions to be performed with 20% of extra-weight from maximum load. Active surface electrodes (TSD) and MP150 - Biopac System amplifier with 16 channels will be used. The electromyography signals will be treat as root-mean-square (RMS) e mean power frequency (MPF). The training effects on the muscles activation of the concentric and eccentric phases will be also analyzed. (AU)