Muscle · Core

Rectus abdominis

Musculus rectus abdominis

The pair of vertical straps running up the front of the abdomen from the pubis to the lower ribs, divided across by tendinous bands into the segments people call a six-pack, and wrapped in a fibrous sheath that meets its opposite number in the midline at the linea alba. Its job is simple and singular: it bends the trunk forward. It is the muscle most people train when they say they are training their core — which is the clinical point, because the founder's system locates core stability in the deep muscles underneath it, and attributes disc injury to exactly the repeated loaded flexion this muscle produces.