A sexy reason to work your abs at the gym

Abdominal exercises aren’t exactly fun. Or am I mistaken and they are really the best time you can have after work without having to go Dutch on dinner? A recent study (via ABC News) suggests that the grunt-worthy isolation exercises can have an interesting effect on some women. According to the study—the result of an online survey—there’s a segment of the female population that experiences sexual pleasure—even orgasm--while working their abs.

If you’ve experienced a tingly feeling in the Luon gusset of your Lululemons while working out—some women report having a similar experience while cycling intensely or weightlifting—rest assured you’re not alone. There’s even a name for the phenomenon: Exercise Induced Orgasm (EIO), or what’s known more playfully as the ‘coregasm’.

The clever nickname is a play on how the experience is triggered. Apparently any exercise that recruits the lower abdominal muscles can provoke that familiar ‘butterflies-in-Hanes-Her-Way’ feeling in a health-conscious gal.

Researchers at the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University conducted the study, which consisted of an online survey asking women to 'fess up about their workout habits and experiences. Researchers speculate that an estimated 15 percent of women experience arousal while working out. The results were published in the journal, Sexual and Relationship Therapy.

The exercises cited most often for their pleasurable effects in the survey were ab exercises (45 percent), weight lifting (26.5 percent), yoga (20 percent), bicycling (15.8 percent), running (13.2 percent) and walking/hiking (9.6 percent).

Chin-ups, rope climbing and using a piece of ab-crunching equipment known as the “captain’s chair” (requesting permission to board, captain!) were also named as warm and fuzzy triggers by the women polled.