
- Crunch exercise how to#
- Crunch exercise crack#
Lie down on your back with your knees bent, feet as wide as your hips and feet flat on the floor.If you’re feeling confident, follow these step-by-step instructions to complete the crunch with perfect form: Performing a crunch effectively takes some practice. Make sure to keep your knees bent and your shoulder blades off the ground as you tighten your abdominals.From this position, lift your chest up only halfway.
Place your hands behind your head with your elbows wide.Bend your knees and place your feet flat on the mat.
Crunch exercise how to#
If you’re unsure how to perform a crunch without straining your neck, try the modified version to work your core as you gain the confidence to tackle the full move. Hold that egg! This helps you to maintain proper alignment and also ensures your neck is not over engaged during the crunch. Make sure your chin isn’t tilting down too far toward your chest or pointing up to high towards the ceiling.
Crunch exercise crack#
Pretend that you’re holding an egg between your chin and your chest, and you don’t want to crack it. Relax your shoulders even though you are using your arms to hold your hands underneath your head. Allow your head to rest heavy in your hands. Lift your head and neck up off of the ground while supporting your head with your hands. Place your hands behind your head and open your elbows out to the sides. Here's how to keep your neck and back safe during crunches: When you’re doing a crunch, you want to make sure that your head and neck are properly supported. Rest your fingertips gently behind your head, and be sure to keep your elbows wide pointed out toward the sides of the room (versus pulling forward toward your knees). Pull your navel in toward your spine and squeeze your abs, making sure your low back maintains contact with the ground. I’d rather you do an exercise correctly than do a more advanced exercise incorrectly. Then, you can move on to a sit up or a modified sit up. Perform a crunch without any neck pain first. Therefore, I recommend that people start with a crunch. It’s very challenging to use the abs and core correctly to do a proper sit up. Heaving forward and overusing the low back or shoulders is a common mistake people make because they’re using momentum to sit up. The truth is that many people perform sit ups incorrectly, too. Sometimes I’m asked if a crunch or a sit up is a better workout. Mastering the correct form not only will prevent you from straining your neck and causing pain and injury, but it will ensure you get the best workout from your crunches. If you finish a round of crunches and feel a tension or ache in your neck, it's a good sign you aren't performing the move properly. In reality, they’re one of the exercises that I see performed incorrectly most often. But the moves popularity also gives many people a false sense of confidence when doing them.