One Leg Abdominal Crunch Exercise with Balance Ball

Series Summary

Balance balls found at exercise facilities and gyms are increasing in popularity and variety of uses. These balls are used to increase flexibility, balance and agility as well as core strength. Abdominal muscles as well as arms, back and glutes can be worked and strengthened using balancing balls. Exercise balls come in different sizes and colors depending on your height and preference. When sitting on the balancing ball, your knees should bend at a 90 degree angle and your back should be straight unless you are performing an exercise.

Watch this series of expert videos and learn more about balance ball exercises and work outs. You will learn abdominal crunches and rolls that will strengthen your core muscles. Our expert demonstrates exercises that will strengthen your biceps, chest muscles, leg muscles and your abs. Watch as our expert demonstrates leg raises, plank positions, and reverse planks, and reverse crunches. You will find instructional videos on do-it-yourself techniques for shoulder lateral exercises in this series.

Video Transcript

"Hi! This is Manny Castro, Exercise Physiologist. In this clip, I’ll demonstrate a variation of an abdominal crunch. This is the luxury you have with the stability ball or balance ball; you can actually do different things that target different areas of your abdominals or lower back or different difficulties in this case. What we’re going to do in this variety is actually come back down to our abdominal crunch position. What we’re going to do is hold one leg up. This forces you to balance yourself on the ball and targets the finer muscles all around the thoracic area. Now you can start your crunching. You want to keep this to about 12-15 repetitions when you're starting out and then probably advance to about 15-20 repetitions as you get better at it. Once again, we put one leg up and we’ll begin our crunch. Once again, all you need is about 30 degrees lifting your thoracic area. That’s basically it."