How to Do Side Lifts Ab Crunches

The hardest area of the body to see results in when toning and building the body with muscle is the abs and obliques. One of the best exercises is crunches. They actually will achieve faster results than full sit ups. The movement of the body in a crunch is much less than in a sit up but has the effect of holding the ab and oblique muscles tight during the entire set of exercises.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Lie on your side on a floor mat. If you need to place your feet next to each other for stabilization that is fine. Cross your arms across your chest and place your hands on opposite shoulders.

2. Hold your upper body straight and keep your neck straight with respect to your spine. Use the oblique muscles, which run along the side of your abdominal cavity to raise your upper body off the mat. You should be bending at the hip and keeping your shoulders perpendicular to the floor and your ab and obliques tight during the whole exercise. Raise your body until the lower shoulder is about five or six inches off the floor and then lower back to the floor.

3. Keep your body in control and make the movement slow and controlled. Hold the position when you reach the furthest point upward for a second and then lower yourself in a similar controlled slow motion.

4. Repeat this exercise on the other side of the body by flipping and lying on the other side. You should begin somewhere between 10 and 20 repetitions of this exercise on each side and then begin to work up to more, until you reach a point where you can perform 100 on each side.

Tips & Warnings

• If you have incorporated ab crunches on the ball with your ab workout, you can also do oblique crunches on the ball by simply twisting the right shoulder to the left knee and then the left shoulder to the right knee for a set of one oblique crunch.

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