Basic Ab Crunch

Series Summary

Running is a popular recreational and fitness activity of many Americans. For cardiovascular health and convenience, running is hard to beat. But what about building muscle for overall health and wellbeing? Your core muscles are the abdominal and lower back muscles that keep your spine aligned and your whole body anchored and centered during sports or physical activity. These exercises strengthen the abs, back, and midsection, giving you power for good health or athletics.

In this free video series, expert athlete Jeannette Stojcevski shows you fifteen excellent exercise to build core muscles. Jeannette shows you basic ab crunches, side crunches, and many exercises that target the obliques. You learn scissor and bicycle exercises, back extensions, isometrics, and pilates-inspired exercises as well. It is all here, helping you build a stronger core.

Video Transcript

"First abdominal exercise we are going to do is the basic crunch. All you'll need is your towel, or if you're at home you can do this on the floor, on carpet, I prefer carpet. Go ahead and start on your back. Knees are bent at about a ninety degree angle. You're comfortable. And first what I'm going to do is show you your basic, basic crunch. You're going to start with your hands right at your temples, you're not holding on behind your head because you're more likely to pull on your head and neck muscles. By holding on just right at your temples you're less likely to pull on your neck and more likely to use your abdominal muscles. So your basic crunch is going to involve keeping your feet flat on the floor, and you're going to think about lifting your shoulder blades up off of the floor, tightening your abdominal muscles, bringing your ribs in towards your hips. You're going to hold for about a two second count and lower back down to the ground. Going to lift and lower. I recommend that you just go straight over your knees. I'm going to show you a couple variations. To increase the intensity, you can bring your feet up off the floor, keep your feet side by side or crossed, ninety degree then. And once again, lift shoulder blades off the floor, tightening, holding, and lowering down. Now you do not want to completely lower down and rest, you want to keep those muscles contracted. So I only recommend lowering down a couple of inches. Lift up, hold, tighten and lower down. The last variation which is the most challenging is keeping your feet completely straight, or keeping your legs completely straight. Up toward the ceiling, and again don't pull on the head, and lower down. Tighten those ab muscles, bring the ribs in towards the hips, lower down. If you do your abdominal muscle, if you do your ab exercises correctly, it's quality over quantity. So you shouldn't have to do a hundred or two hundred reps to feel these ab exercises effectively."