Health Fitness & Exercise You Might Be Ignoring the Most Important Ab Muscle You Have—Here's How to Strengthen It at Home Don't let this crucial core muscle fall by the wayside. By Maggie Seaver Maggie Seaver Maggie Seaver is the digital health and wellness editor at Real Simple, with seven years of experience writing lifestyle and wellness content. She spends her days writing and editing stories about sleep, mental health, fitness, preventive health, nutrition, personal development, relationships, healthy habits, and beyond. She loves demystifying complicated health topics, debunking wellness fads, and sharing practical, science-backed solutions for healthy living. Real Simple's Editorial Guidelines Updated on October 4, 2022 Fact checked by Isaac Winter Fact checked by Isaac Winter Isaac Winter is a fact-checker and writer for Real Simple, ensuring the accuracy of content published by rigorously researching content before publication and periodically when content needs to be updated. Highlights: Helped establish a food pantry in West Garfield Park as an AmeriCorps employee at Above and Beyond Family Recovery Center. Interviewed Heartland Alliance employees for oral history project conducted by the Lake Forest College History Department. Editorial Head of Lake Forest College's literary magazine, Tusitala, for two years. Our Fact-Checking Process Share Tweet Pin Email In This Article View All In This Article TVA Counting Bird Dogs Knee Hovers Ready for this fitness truth bomb? Having a six-pack isn't always synonymous with having a strong core. Strengthening your rectus abdominis (the superficial outer ab muscles lovingly known as the six-pack) is important, but it's far from the only ab workout to focus on. As with most things in life, you have to go deeper for the full effect—all the way to your transverse abdominis. "The transverse abdominis, or TVA muscle, is the deepest ab muscle, attaching to the anterior lumbar spine and wrapping around the midsection from back to front like a corset or pair of Spanx," says Ali Handley, founder of Bodylove Pilates in New York City. "When correctly engaged, the TVA cinches the waist, lengthens the torso, flattens the belly, and supports the spine and pelvis." 8 Bodyweight Exercises You Can Do Anywhere Just because the transverse abdominis is hard to see and reach doesn't mean it's not crucial to keeping you strong, toned, and pain-free. This super-deep muscle often referred to as the corset muscle, does everything from stabilizing your lumbar spine to holding your organs in place. That's a huge job. And according to Handley, if you have a weak or disengaged TVA, back pain likely isn't far behind. "A strong TVA supports the pelvis in a neutral position, which lets you correctly target and strengthen your lower body," she says. "Therefore, someone with a weak TVA will likely have weak butt and leg muscles too." Unlike the rectus abdominis (or visible six-pack muscles), the TVA muscle fibers run horizontally, Handley says. A strong transverse abdominis compresses and flattens the belly, whereas the rectus muscle fibers run vertically and grow outward. Good news if you're sick of crunches: Forget about them—they won't help strengthen your TVA. "If you have a weak TVA, you may have a low belly pooch, and no matter how many crunches you do, it won't go away," Handley says. How to Become a Morning Workout Person (and Actually Stick With It) So if crunches don't do the trick, how exactly can you work this muscle? "The TVA is a thinking muscle, which means you don't have to move to activate it," Handley says. "Instead you have to find a mind-body connection to the action of the muscle. Just by breathing and thinking about how it wraps around your body will engage it." Here are some of the best ab workouts you can do at home (or literally in your chair at work) to engage the transverse abdominis muscle. Getty Images TVA Counting 1. Sit comfortably on a physioball, yoga block, or chair with a neutral spine and weight evenly distributed between both sitting bones. 2. Inhale through your nose, allowing your belly to fill up with air and your stomach muscles to relax completely. 3. Exhale a long, slow, even breath through your mouth and imagine your TVA wrapping around your midsection, pulling your belly button in all the way to the spine. 4. Keep your belly button on your spine and begin to count out loud. Start by holding and counting to 10 and build to 25. Bird Dogs 1. Start on all fours with your spine in a neutral position. 2. Inhale through your nose, allowing your belly to fill up with air and your stomach muscles to relax completely. 3. Exhale a long, slow, even breath through your mouth as you imagine your TVA wrapping around your midsection, pulling your belly button in all the way to the spine, and knitting the two sides of the abs together. 4. Keeping your abs engaged and spine completely neutral, reach your left arm and right leg out away from the body. Inhale through your nose again and bring the arm and leg back to the start position. 5. Exhale through your mouth again and extend the opposite arm and leg. Aim for eight reps on each side. Knee Hovers 1. Start on all fours with your spine in a neutral position. 2. Inhale through your nose, allowing your belly to fill up with air and your stomach muscles to relax completely. 3. Exhale a long, slow, even breath through your mouth as you imagine you're zipping a pair of high-waisted jeans up and over your belly button. 4. Keeping your abs engaged and spine completely neutral, hold this connection as you lift and hover both knees up off of the mat. 5. Inhale as you lower the knees with control. Aim for eight reps. Core challenge: Hold the connection and hover the knees for one minute. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Other Submit Sources Real Simple is committed to using high-quality, reputable sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts in our articles. Read our editorial guidelines to learn more about how we fact check our content for accuracy. Xu C, Fu Z, Wang X. Effect of transversus abdominis muscle training on pressure-pain threshold in patients with chronic low back pain. BMC Sports Sci Med Rehabil. 2021;13(1):35. doi:10.1186/s13102-021-00262-8 Lynders C. The critical role of development of the transversus abdominis in the prevention and treatment of low back pain. HSS Journal®. 2019;15(3):214-220. doi:10.1007/s11420-019-09717-8 Da Cuña-Carrera I, Alonso-Calvete A, Soto-González M, Lantarón-Caeiro EM. How do the abdominal muscles change during hypopressive exercise? Medicina (Kaunas). 2021;57(7):702. doi:10.3390/medicina57070702