maratoolExercise Ball Crunch
How to do the exercise ball crunch
- Lie on an exercise ball with your lower back curvature pressed against the spherical surface of the ball. Your feet should be bent at the knee and pressed firmly against the floor. The upper torso should be hanging off the top of the ball. The arms should either be kept alongside the body or crossed on top of your chest as these positions avoid neck strains (as opposed to the hands behind the back of the head position).
- Lower your torso into a stretch position keeping the neck stationary at all times. This will be your starting position.
- With the hips stationary, flex the waist by contracting the abdominals and curl the shoulders and trunk upward until you feel a nice contraction on your abdominals. The arms should simply slide up the side of your legs if you have them at the side or just stay on top of your chest if you have them crossed. The lower back should always stay in contact with the ball. Exhale as you perform this movement and hold the contraction for a second.
- As you inhale, go back to the starting position.
- Repeat for the recommended amount of repetitions.
Muscles worked
The prime movers are the rectus abdominis and the obliques, which flex the trunk forward and resist it being pulled into extension or twisted out of line.
Every exercise for:Abdominals
How this movement works
One joint changes angle and the resistance travels toward you along a single arc. Nothing is positioned to help, so tension stays where you aimed it and the usable load drops sharply against a multi-joint pull for the same muscle. Protect the range of motion; buying weight by shortening the arc defeats the point.
It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.
What you need
The exercise ball is an unstable base on purpose. It shortens the leverage you can hold and demands constant small corrections, so the trunk works even when the movement is aimed elsewhere.
Every exercise using:Exercise ball
These train the abdominals too, using equipment this one does not:
- Flat Bench Leg Pull-Inbody only
- Kettlebell Figure 8kettlebell
- Kneeling Cable Crunch With Alternating Oblique Twistscable
- Landmine 180'sbarbell
- Medicine Ball Full Twistmedicine ball
Difficulty
Listed at beginner level: the pattern is simple enough to pick up without coaching, and a position that goes wrong mid-set is obvious enough to correct on the next repetition.
Of the 97 abdominals exercises in this database, 69 are listed at beginner level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.