What are the benefits of crunches on the press and how to perform them

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

We are figuring out how to make this exercise even more effective and safer.

How curling on a press differs from a fold

Fold and twist on the abs are very similar movements to pumping the rectus and oblique abdominal muscles. In both exercises, you lie on your back, most often with your legs bent and your hands behind your head, raising and lowering the body.

Only in the sit up does the body rise completely, so that at the extreme point you sit, and in the crunch, only the shoulder blades come off, and the lower back remains on the floor throughout the exercise.

Thanks to this feature, in twisting, the lower back receives about one and a half times less compression load than when performing a fold. And while the activation of the muscles in the crunches is also significantly lower, the exercise in the long run provides fewer risks to the back.

At the same time, trainers and scientists periodically think about how to make crunches on the press not only safe, but also more effective in terms of pumping muscles. Below we will list what they found.

How to do abdominal crunches to better load your muscles

There are many exercise options that differ in the position of the legs and arms, range of motion and stability of support. Based on research data, we will choose the best technique

How to put your feet

Most often, crunches on the press are performed by bending the hips at an angle of 45 ° and pressing the feet against the mat.

You can also do this exercise with your hips and knees bent at right angles. In this case, the shins can be held in weight or put on a low support - a bench or a box.

Twisting with the hips at 90 ° loads better, the abdominal muscles both in dynamics and in statics - when you lift the body and fix the position for a while.

Fix feet or not

If you move your feet under the sofa or ask someone to hold your ankles, the activation of the abdominal muscles will increase, but the compression load on the lower back will also increase.

In addition, leg fixation increases the activation of the hip flexors. For pre-existing back problems, this can aggravate the condition and cause pain.

Therefore, it makes sense to keep your legs free, especially if you are looking for exercise with minimal risk to the lower back.

Where to keep your hands

Most often, twists are done with the hands behind the head, when the elbows are bent and the fingers touch the back of the head. You can also straighten your arms at the seams with your palms down, extend them behind your head, or cross them over your chest.

From a biomechanical point of view, the farther the weight (arms) is from the press, the longer the lever and the greater the load on the muscles.

In one experiment, it was found that the position with the arms bent behind the head or extended above it increased the activation of the abdominal muscles compared to the position of the arms along the body.

Despite the fact that the study tested static twisting (5 seconds of hold), it is logical to assume that this will work for the dynamic version as well.

How high to climb

One study tested how high one had to climb in crunches in order for the abs to be fully activated.

To find out, they used a standard abdominal strength test. Participants lay on their backs, bending their knees, and stretching their arms along the body. Then they were instructed to twist the body so that the fingers moved forward 5, 10 or 15 cm.

The video below is an example of a test with a 10 cm wide strip.

It turned out that the abdominal muscles tensed best when the fingers moved 10 cm forward. With this rise, the shoulder blades are completely lifted off the floor, but the lower back remains pressed.

To determine how high you need to climb, you can once measure the distance with a ruler, remember the sensations and then perform in a similar range without any measurements.

How to breathe

One experiment tested how three breathing patterns affect muscle activation during crunches. Participants performed crunches either on hold (in the first variant, after a full inhalation, in the second, after a full exhalation), or with a slow exhalation at the moment of effort.

It turned out that the greatest muscle activation can be achieved using full exhalation and holding effort.

How fast to go up and down

One experiment showed that eccentric crunches on the press with a 30 ° bend of the body better than others pump the transverse abdominal muscle, located under the obliques and is responsible for stabilizing the body.

Try increasing the eccentric phase of the exercise - when you return your shoulder blades and shoulders to the floor. For example, go up in one second and go down in two.

To pump muscles to the fullest, perform the movement like this:

• Lie on the floor on your back, bend your hips and knees at right angles. You can put your shins on a support of a suitable height or leave them hanging.
• Straighten your arms over your head or place them behind your head.
• Exhale, tighten your abs and hold your breath.
• Tear your head, shoulders and shoulder blades off the floor, leave your lower back pressed against it.
• Return slowly to starting position and repeat.

What mistakes should be avoided when doing the exercise

There are several common mistakes that will prevent you from pumping your abs and can lead to overexertion and pain:

• Do not rest your chin against your chest. This overloads the neck and can cause pain. Imagine a tennis ball squeezed between your chin and neck.
• Do not climb high off the floor. If you lift your lower back off the floor, the twist becomes a fold, and the lower part of the spine receives more stress.
• Don't relax your abs … From the moment you exhaled fully and tightened your abs, until the end of the approach, you must consciously keep your stomach in tension. This will help to better load the muscles and prevent you from lifting your lower back off the floor.

How often to do crunches on the press

The abdominal muscles are very hardy, they hardly get tired and quickly recover. Therefore, you can safely perform several sets of crunches on the press every day without fear of overloading the muscles.

Start with 3-4 sets of 20-25 reps. Over time, you can increase the number to 4-5 approaches 50 times.

But if you don't have back problems, don't get hung up on this exercise. For a complete pumping of the muscles of the body, it is better to alternate twisting on the press with other effective movements: "bicycle", lifting the knees while hanging on the horizontal bar, rolling with a roller.

You can do one set of crunches before training as part of the warm-up and finish the abs after training, as well as do them as part of the complexes for pumping the core.

How to complicate crunches on the press

You can make the abdominal crunches harder to tire the muscles faster.

Add resistance

Take a small 2, 5 or 5 kg pancake or a dumbbell, remove the weight behind your head and do twisting with it.

Watch for sensations in the neck: if you feel that it is overloaded, it is better to press the weight to your chest. And do not forget about the form of the exercise: strain the abs constantly and make sure that the lower back does not come off the floor.

Do on an unstable support

Crunches on the press are often done on a fitball - a large elastic ball. Since in this version you have to not only perform the movement itself, but also stabilize the body, the abdominal muscles are activated much better than on a fixed support.

Lie on the ball and straighten your hip joint as much as possible, straining your buttocks. While holding this position, place your hands behind your head or extend over it and perform crunches.

This technique will help eliminate movement in the hip joint and increase the load on the rectus and oblique abdominal muscles.