How to do Elevated Crunches

Difficulty: Medium

Impact Level: Low

Target Body Parts: abs

Instructions

Start laying on your back on a mat or a towel. Bring your hands up by your ears and take your elbows out wide. Then elevate your feet off the floor with a 90 degree bend at your hips and your knees. You want your thighs to be vertical and your shins to be parallel to the floor. This is the start position.

Then, keeping your lower back pressed down into the floor, tuck your chin to your chest, draw your belly button down and contract your abdominals to roll your upper spine up off the floor. At the same time, allow your wide elbows to squeeze up and in towards your knees. This is the top position. From here lower yourself back to the floor by curling your spine down from bottom to top, as your head touches the floor. Keep your legs elevated and repeat the crunches for the duration of the exercise.

Watch out for the temptation to let your feet lower towards the floor, or for your knees to get drawn in towards the chest, allowing your hip-flexors to take over in the movement, which we don’t want.

How to make Elevated Crunches easier

If you want to dial the intensity down a little, try resting your feet up on a chair, step or bench. Plus check out our Abdominal Crunch and Twisting Crunches exercises to build up core strength before tackling the Elevated Crunch.