Crunches are one of the most popular beginner core exercises, especially if your goal is to burn belly fat and build that much-desired six pack.
Crunches might be one of the most popular abdominal exercises, but they are also the one beginner exercise that is usually performed incorrectly. I don’t want this to be you!
Guys, I guarantee you’re making at least ONE of these mistakes for this abdominal exercise so let’s make sure we fix that today so you can bring this information to your workouts this week.
The Major Differences Between Sit Ups And Crunches
Crunches might be one of the most popular abdominal exercises, but they are also the one beginner exercise that is usually performed incorrectly.
The best way to maximize contraction of the abdominal muscles is by understanding the function of those core muscles in relation to which direction the muscle fibers move.
The obliques are angled muscles that run high to low and low to high. There are two sets of oblique muscles: the internal and external obliques. They help with rotating the torso laterally (sideways), as well as flexion and extension.
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One of the most neglected muscles of the abs, the serratus is intertwined with the external obliques. This means if you want to burn body fat and have six-pack abs, you’ll need to work both areas.
The transverse abdominis runs horizontally. You can think of the transverse abdominis as your own internal weight belt. It helps with rotating the torso and stabilizing your spine.
Now that you know exactly which muscles you need to target when performing a basic crunch, let’s jump into the top 10 most common mistakes with abdominal crunches.
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As a trainer, these are the mistakes I see the most. I guarantee that you’re making at least one of these mistakes while performing this classic core exercise.
And here’s the thing, these mistakes aren’t connected to using weights during the crunch. Performing these with only body weight, you’ll still make the same mistakes. Using weights just makes the mistakes more extreme.
Mistake number one might come as a surprise to some of you, especially if you already believe that standard crunches are terrible and useless core exercises.
Ab X Abdominal Trainer
That being said, I’m a big fan of this core-strengthening exercise, and there’s good reason that’s it a favorite exercise of mine.
I appreciate the researchers that have gone into great depth to show that they don’t believe that crunches are an effective or safe bodyweight exercise.
When this type of research is being done, it’s usually performed on animals, not humans. What’s more, when humans are used, it’s usually cadavers that are the test subjects.
Ab Exercises That Are Better Than Crunches
Throw in the fact that the accumulation of load is typically not represented in a way that we do it when we do crunches.
Lumbar flexion is one of the main functions of the abdominal muscles. It’s one of the most common daily movements in our repertoire, and we can do it safely without increasing our risk of injury.
When we are activating lumbar flexion during an exercise routine, we actually take a break during the movement and we decompress from time to time, which saves the health of our spines.
Exercise Step With Reverse Crunch By Healthy Woman. Stock Vector
The bottom line here is that it’s too early to jump on the “crunches suck” bandwagon, especially when we know that there are benefits to be had.
Continuing with the point above: I’ll admit that people who say that crunches aren’t good are usually complaining about low back pain after doing them.
And I guarantee that more often than not, these same people are hooking their feet the wrong way during this basic exercise, which increases the risk of low back pain.
From Upper To Lower Abs, You Can Fix Them All With X Crunches
From the starting position on the floor, if you put your feet flat and under something to stabilize your body and pull up, all you’re doing is over activating your hip flexors.
However, if you make the simple adjustment of putting your feet over the top of something to anchor your body, this gets you that all important activation of the hamstrings, letting the hip flexors relax and taking that excess strain off of your lower back.
It’s a simple switch, but it’s a big one when it comes to leaving you with only the gains and none of the pains that you get from crunches.
Lower Ab Exercises (right Vs. Wrong)
The first step is to make sure that you’re clearing the bottom of your shoulder blades off the ground on every repetition WITHOUT straining your neck.
From the starting position, keep the neck neutral and relaxed. Don’t forget to have your shoulders relaxed and in a neutral position as well.
Also, try not to have the elbows pointing forward in a contracted state. Instead, let your elbows be more relaxed and off to the side.
X Crunch By Tanya M
This means you need to keep your neck straight and focus on the contraction of the abs – not just the lifting of the upper body, which is the perfect segue into the next abdominal crunches mistake.
When it comes to the most important part about doing a crunch, most of us worry about the wrong thing: getting to a fully seated position.
Getting from Point A to Point B isn’t the important part; it’s the journey that got you there and the quality of the rep.
Ab Crunch Workout
But I’m saying when people are doing their crunches, they should stop focusing on the height that they get with their upper body and focus more on the quality and control of the contraction.
The key is that you want to make sure that you have perfect form, your abs are initiating the contraction, and that same muscle is controlling it all the way up and all the way down.
And this will only happen if you’re focusing on the contraction of the abs alone and not just how high or how low you’re getting.
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This next one can be confusing for a lot of people, but you have to make sure you get this right, so pay close attention here.
Guys, if you want your abs to look their best from the different types of crunches that you’re doing, you need to master the proper form technique of blowing air OUT while contracting your abs IN.
If you focus on just breathing air out AND puffing your stomach out, you’ll build up a bulging belly, even if it has a six pack over the top, rather than that flat type of belly that you’re looking for.
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Now we all have been told that you want to breathe out on the exertion part during bouts of exercise, but it doesn’t mean you want to push out while you’re doing a standard crunch.
And the way to do this with some good feedback is to just place something like an exercise ball, tennis ball, or an object on your belly button.
Lie down on an exercise mat and focus on first pulling your belly down, contracting the transverse abdominis and then initiating the crunch and not allowing that belly of yours to push out and have that object fall off.
How To Do A Bicycle Crunch: Techniques, Benefits, Variations
Ultimately this will help you get the core strength and the aesthetics you’re looking for when you’re trying to carve out your six pack.
If your idea of crunches is to come up two or three inches off the ground and simply pump away, you’re making the next mistake on our list.
The only way you’re going to do that – the safer version of this exercise – is by forgetting about how high you can count to.
Crunches And Sit Ups Can Be Bad For Your Core — What To Try Instead
Instead, focus on how well you perform the contraction – how much you can make it hurt – on every single rep you do.
You see, people usually overlook the fact that crunches are crunches, whether or not you’re lying face up (bicycle crunches) or face down (mountain climbers).
Lumbar flexion is the main driver of abdominal activation through a crunch, and we can do that so many other ways besides a traditional crunch, mountain climber, or bicycle crunch exercise.
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Closed-chain crunch variations are great because they give you a more seamless flow through the kinetic chain to allow these ground reaction forces to pass up and down through our entire body, transmitting right through the entire core.
Make sure you’re mixing it up because if you always do the same thing, you’re going to keep getting the same thing you’ve always gotten.
Now that being said, I have my issues with certain crunches done in an alternative position. In this case, I’m talking about the cable crunch pulldown.
Ways To Do A Side Crunch
If you want this exercise to work for you, you have to learn how to keep your butt in the right position, and that means the same position you started in.
From here, you just want to simply pull your elbows down towards the ground using just the flexion of your lumbar spine and not the sitting back of your pelvis onto your heels.
I can’t stress this enough: focus on the quality of the contraction, the quality of how you perform the exercise, and forget about the numbers.
X Factor Adjustable Weight Utility Bench Sit Up Ab Bench Full Body Workout Abdominal Crunch Exercise Home Gym Workout Red
Continuing with the same idea from above, I want to talk about a version of the crunch that most people completely forget to do: the side crunch.
The side crunch is my go-to exercise and the one most responsible for
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