Reverse Crunches
Online Personal Trainer - One of the greatest ab exercises in the world and yet hardly ever utilized by even a minority of personal trainers in Dallas and elsewhere. This is largely because correct technique for this exercise is rarely known or understood (probably this is often due to personal trainer's failing to use this exercise in their own training programs and thereby never developing the technique understanding that can only come through mastering the "feel" of the exercise).
Lie on your back on a flat bench and grab hold of the bench behind your head with your hands. Tuck your knees up tightly over your abdomen, keep your feet in close to your rear end (don't let them stick up in the air), and raise your rear end slightly off of the benchwithout raising your lower back off of the bench. This is the starting position.
From this position, begin to crunch your torso by creating intense muscular pressure in your abdomen. Envision that you are rolling your spine up, starting from the bottom. As you crunch your abdominal muscles tightly and roll your spine up, your hips will lift off of the bench and your knees will approach your face.
Keep your knees tucked as close to your body as possible throughout the entire movement, making sure to do the lifting by tightly contracting your abs, rather than using your hip flexors. There should be no separate leg movement. This is a crunching movement, not a leg raising movement. Your legs are simply coming along for the ride as your hips come up.
Keep the motion smooth and do not swing or jerk at all. On each rep, lower your hips as close to the bench as possible without setting your rear end down. However, never go lower than the lowest point at which your abs can maintain control of the motion. When you first learn these, you may not be able to lower yourself all the way without losing control of the motion with your abs. Simply go as low as your abs can control... and as you get stronger, you will get to where you can go lower and lower while still maintaining tight control of the motion with your abs throughout the entire range of motion. This will just take practice with focused effort on creating an extremely tight abdominal contraction.
After you have lowered yourself to your lower limit (without setting your rear end down), smoothlychange the direction of your motion by applying intense abdominal pressure and crunching your abs tightly to begin another rep. It is at this point that it can be very tempting to use some momentum or rush the movement. Make absolutely sure that you do not do that. Instead, deliberately keep your movement smooth and controlled as you change directions and begin the next rep. Do not set the weight of your hips down on the bench or let your abs rest at all in between reps.
As always, we do not recommend performing any exercise without the supervision of a highly qualified Dallas personal trainer. This exercise description is for informational purposes only. Consult your doctor before attempting any workout program or attempting this exercise or any other exercise on this website.
Lie on your back on a flat bench and grab hold of the bench behind your head with your hands. Tuck your knees up tightly over your abdomen, keep your feet in close to your rear end (don't let them stick up in the air), and raise your rear end slightly off of the benchwithout raising your lower back off of the bench. This is the starting position.
From this position, begin to crunch your torso by creating intense muscular pressure in your abdomen. Envision that you are rolling your spine up, starting from the bottom. As you crunch your abdominal muscles tightly and roll your spine up, your hips will lift off of the bench and your knees will approach your face.
Keep your knees tucked as close to your body as possible throughout the entire movement, making sure to do the lifting by tightly contracting your abs, rather than using your hip flexors. There should be no separate leg movement. This is a crunching movement, not a leg raising movement. Your legs are simply coming along for the ride as your hips come up.
Keep the motion smooth and do not swing or jerk at all. On each rep, lower your hips as close to the bench as possible without setting your rear end down. However, never go lower than the lowest point at which your abs can maintain control of the motion. When you first learn these, you may not be able to lower yourself all the way without losing control of the motion with your abs. Simply go as low as your abs can control... and as you get stronger, you will get to where you can go lower and lower while still maintaining tight control of the motion with your abs throughout the entire range of motion. This will just take practice with focused effort on creating an extremely tight abdominal contraction.
After you have lowered yourself to your lower limit (without setting your rear end down), smoothlychange the direction of your motion by applying intense abdominal pressure and crunching your abs tightly to begin another rep. It is at this point that it can be very tempting to use some momentum or rush the movement. Make absolutely sure that you do not do that. Instead, deliberately keep your movement smooth and controlled as you change directions and begin the next rep. Do not set the weight of your hips down on the bench or let your abs rest at all in between reps.
As always, we do not recommend performing any exercise without the supervision of a highly qualified Dallas personal trainer. This exercise description is for informational purposes only. Consult your doctor before attempting any workout program or attempting this exercise or any other exercise on this website.