Hold a weight in both hands and extend your arms overhead, pressing your hands against the weight. To do the move, stand with your feet hip-width apart, engage your core and keep a tall spine. ![]() Strengthen your obliques, shoulders and back muscles with side bends. Avoid rounding your back or leaning forward. To add an extra challenge, hold a pair of dumbbells throughout. Engage your core and keep your hips square, then drive your left elbow to your left knee and return to the starting position. ![]() Bend your elbows and raise your arms to shoulder height with palms facing forward, or place them behind your head and draw your shoulder blades together. Adopt a wide stance with toes pointed out (here’s how to do a sumo squat in more detail), and lower into a squat with thighs parallel to the floor. Get more bang for your buck by working your legs, shoulders and obliques. 3 crunch variations to add to your ab workouts 1. We also recommend learning the most important thing to do when working your abs so that you can understand how core exercises should feel before trying advanced ab exercises. Your abs are responsible for stability and anti-rotation, so for beginners, practicing isometric ab exercises like planks, and ab exercises for the deeper core muscles, like leg raises, should be a priority to build foundational core strength. If you have a neck injury, are pregnant or have just had a baby, focus primarily on working your pelvic floor and deeper core muscles first, rebuilding strength before progressing to crunches. Regardless of how good your form might be, the core exercise could be off the table for some people. Try to keep your lower back pressed into the floor at all times, and during standing crunches, keep a neutral spine, proud chest and flat back. Regardless of the crunch variations you try, the movement often involves driving your head closer to your legs or vice versa (or both!) A common mistake is hyper-flexing the neck, so keep your neck in a neutral position rather than tucking your chin to your chest. Here are 5 reasons you can’t see your abs yet despite working out. The benefits of crunches will vary depending on the exercise - some target the oblique muscles using lateral flexion and twisting, and others primarily hit the rectus abdominal muscles (think the six-pack look), which account for movement between your pelvis and the ribcage.īut if visible abs are the goal, you’ll need to look at other lifestyle factors like body fat percentage and diet. ![]() You could argue crunch variations offer more variety than sit-ups, but there are now so many ways to modify the moves that it’s pretty hard to call it. For many people, crunches are accessible, but if you’re working with a back injury, we recommend checking in with a personal trainer or doctor first. Like many of the best ab exercises, including sit-ups, crunches develop a stronger core, which improves posture, mobility and flexibility and helps you function better day-to-day. When deciding on ab workouts, consider weighing up the pros and cons of sit-ups vs crunches. Pause, then slowly lower back to your starting position. Start on your back with both hands resting on the back of your headīend your knees and place both feet on your mat, hip-width apartĮngage your stomach muscles, then lift your upper back off the mat while keeping the lower back pressed into the mat
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