An excellent compound-muscle ab workout is the Fitness Crunches. They offer a lesser risk of damage than typical sit-ups and target your upper abdominal, lower abdominal, oblique, and lower back muscles when performed correctly. You’ll learn in this post how to maintain proper crunch form, prevent neck pain, and strengthen your core.
Once you’ve mastered the fundamental crunch, we’ll show you crunch variations to add to your routine that further target particular ab muscles, such as reverse crunches, bicycle crunches, and side crunches!
Table of Contents
Doing Basic Fitness Crunches
Step Ⅰ
Starting Position: Lie on your back on a mat with your knees bent, your feet flat on the ground, and your heels between 12 and 18 inches from your tailbone.
Step Ⅱ
Put your hands behind your head while pushing your elbows back and pressing your shoulder blades together without arching your low back. The exercise should be performed with the elbows in this position. During the upward portion of the exercise, maintain proper spinal alignment while allowing a small amount of flexion (chin toward chest) in the head.
Step Ⅲ
Upward Phase: As you exhale, tighten your core and abdominal muscles, flex your chin slightly inward, and progressively incline your torso toward your thighs. Your rib cage should be pulled toward your pelvis as you make the motion (the neck stays relaxed while the chin is tucked towards the neck). At all times, you should keep your feet, tailbone, and lower back firmly planted on the mat. When your upper back is raised off the mat, keep curling up. Shortly maintain this posture.
Step Ⅳ
Downward Phase: Keep your feet, tailbone, and low back in touch with the mat while you slowly and deliberately breathe in and uncurl (lower) your torso back towards it.
In order to avoid placing too much stress on your low back, proper technique is crucial for this exercise. Most people do this motion too quickly and use their hip flexors to help them with the upward phase. Avoid using this technique because it causes the pelvis to tilt anteriorly, which puts more strain on the low back. The exercise should concentrate on bringing the rib cage and pelvis closer together while maintaining a relaxed neck and shoulders because the abdominals connect the two bodily components.
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