How to Do Basic Abdominal Crunches

Video Transcript

"Hello, I'm Kyle Brayer and this is Carrie, and next we'll be going over the basic crunch. The basic crunch is performed from your back on an ab mat, you can do it at home or at the gym. So Carrie's going to lay down for us, she's going to start out with her feet flat on the mat, she'll have a slight bend in here knees, she's going to cross her arms over her chest. She's going try and keep her elbows as close as possible to her stomach and then she's going to bring her upper body, her torso up and reach for her thighs and then come back down. Now the key here once again and back down is that she's not letting her elbows come off her body and she's not putting her hands behind her head and putting tension on her neck. As she perform this exercise she's breathing in through her nose on the hard portion which is when she's coming up and then she's exhaling on her way down through her mouth. Now a variation of this exercise is to have Carrie lift her legs up, and then put a 90 degree bend here. What this is going to do is put stress on bottom portion of the abs, and she can perform the exact same exercise on the top portion. Come up and back down, and up and back down. And that's the basic crunch."