How to Do a Crunch Correctly | Video

Performing your crunch incorrectly over time can damage your spine. So today I'm going to teach you a safe and effective way to perform the classic crunch. Performing old school crunches creates a lot of bending and extending at the spine, and over time that can cause damage. So we want to do a crunch where we activate our abdominals all at once, creating effective movement for that whole abdominal wall. We're going to start on our back. Bringing it all the way down to the floor, I want you to lay flat on the ground, bringing your knees at ninety degrees. You're going to press that low back into the ground activating those deep abdominals. By pressing into the floor, you're pulling that belly button in towards your spine, and you're creating a nice tension through your entire abdominal wall. You want to place your hands at your thighs. You're going to slowly lift your head, chest and shoulders up off the floor. Reaching those hands towards the knees, you're pulling those abdominals in, really squeezing that entire abdominal wall. You're going to lower down slowly, bringing the down but keeping that low back pulled flat to the floor. If you wanted to challenge your crunch, you can add your hands behind your head. It's going to stabilise your neck, but it's going to add a weight, so as you lift, that chest You're going to feel extra weight from your arms, keep your elbows wide open so you're just supporting, and then lower down. A common mistake mistake that people make, is that they'll pull on their neck and their head when they're doing the crunch. You want to make sure that you're always lifting that chest and that head up towards the sky pulling the shoulder blades off the floor. Do twenty crunches for a complete set, and we'll see you next time on FitSugar TV.