Oh, yeah, you can do that while you're sitting around or whatever. As far as the routine it is nothing you need to do separately; you just perform a vacumn WHILe you're working you abs. It's tricky to hold at first so you may have to reset before each rep, but after a while it's nothing. Keep in mind that I am NOT talking about doing this while squatting or deadlifting.
You've done a great job and from an outside standpoint I really don't think you have anything to be disatisfied with, btw.
BTW, I got to thinking about how on other (cough) boards people still go on and on about how the different "portions" of the ab muscle is separately innervated so therefore you should be able ot work it separately, so on and so on, vertcally banded, horizontally banded, overanalyse, nitpick, etc. and so on. So I thought I'd throw in this quote from Dr. Mel Siff:
Quote:
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"Some authorities state that, since the different regions of the abdominals are separately innervated, one should certainly be able to activate upper and lower regions of the abs separately.
"However, in saying that the lower abs are separately innervated we have to be cautious in misapplying this information. All of the rectus abdominis and the obliques are innervated by branches of the thoracic nerves T6 or T7 - T12, as is transversus (by the ventral rami and L1). This would tend to imply that the lower abs and lower obliques(?!) should be activated by stimulation of T6/7 - T8/9 and the upper abs and upper obliques (if these exist!) by the remaining thoracic nerves. In addition, an examination of their nervous innervation would also suggest that there should be separate activation of upper and lower transversus.
"This clearly confounds the entire issue of trunk action and situps for the supposedly different parts of the trunk muscles. We can only resolve the issue if we stop talking about upper and lower abs etc and analyze in terms of a graduated activation of all of the trunk muscles progressing from the extreme top to the extreme bottom (as defined by the appropriate nerves) - much in the way that a caterpillar moves.
"This would appear to offer a far more accurate and logical biomechanical approach, since the current view of upper vs lower abs would imply that there should be a somewhat jerky discontinuity somewhere during a full crunch. The entire action of trunk flexion is smooth, well-controlled and continuous, so this observation supports my view that there is a smooth continuum of activation of the entire abdominal (and erector spinae) group.
"If one wishes to simplify, then it would be crudely accurate to talk of upper, mid and lower abs, but this still tends to mask the fact that there is really a continuum of muscle activation involving all of the trunk muscles, each exhibiting a different level of involvement, depending on the type and pattern of movement.
"This means that it is highly unlikely that you will be able to totally isolate the 'lower abs', since there is always accompanying involvement of many other stabilizing and mobilizing muscles."(14)
There is reason to focus on movements that turn the pelvis and spine in different directions, but this is to train movement patterns, not muscles. In other words, certain movements utilize the rectus abdomius differently, but it is still one muscle and, again, doesn’t directly affect the fat surrounding it.
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