How to Do Abdominal Crunches

Video Transcript

"Incorporating exercise into your daiy life is very important. However, if exercises are done improperly they can be potentially dangerous and risky. This is Alice Monsaert demonstrating the proper way to do a crunch. First of all lie down in a supine position which means your face is towards the ceiling and you can place your hands over your chest or you can place your hands behind your head. It is important that you keep your elbows out to the side and you are going to lift through the rib cage and not involve the head. So that is the proper way to do it is actually decreasing the space between the rib cage and the hip bone, exhaling as you lift. An improper way would be to lift with the neck and the shoulders and add momentum and roll. Again that is a very small movement, you inhale, exhale and lift through the rib cage. It is also important to incorporate what we call a twist crunch with your regular crunches and that is rotating to the side to keep this elbow on the floor and keep this elbow out to the side and rotate to the shoulder. We are doing a twist crunch to involve the internal and external obliques. We can alternate sides and again we want to have the knees bent to try and relax the hip flexor muscles and take a little bit of pressure off that low back. Lift and crunch and then rotate to the side. Exhale on the lift and then rotate to the side. So again things to avoid are again pulling with the head, neck and shoulders which would just add to neck injury and decrease from the effectiveness of the crunch. This is Alice Monsaert. Have a great day."