Inverse Crunches
Video Demonstrations
Windows WMV
Why Is This Exercise So Effective?
This exercise is one of the most powerful low-equipment exercises you can do. It uses the weight of your entire lower body and places it directly on the abdominals.
How To Do It:
For this exercise, you will need a pole or other solid vertical surface. Even a door frame or solid table leg will work. For this demo, I will use a pole as the example. Lie on your back and brace one shoulder against the pole. Grasp the back side of the pole with both hands about 18 inches up and grip it hard.
To get into the start position, raise your legs up off the floor and slightly bend at your knees and hips. Lock them into this position - your lower back should be flat on the floor at this point or very close to it.
For this exercise, you are going to doing a similar movement to a crunch. The major difference here is that instead of you raising your shoulders to bring your rib cage closer to your pelvis (the anatomical description for the way the crunch is performed), you're going to be locking down your shoulders and bringing your pelvis closer to your rib cage. Why is this effective? What weighs more, your shoulder girdle or your entire lower body? THAT'S why it's more effective.
Let's start the movement. Pull FORWARD and DOWN hard with your arms. Since your upper body is locked down and your lower body isn't, this will raise your entire lower body off the floor. This should NOT be viewed like a leg raise. Visualize like you're trying to pull the pole down and forward. Since the pole won't move, your lower body comes up. The pivot point for this exercise is your upper back/bottom of rib cage area, not the hips like in regular leg raises. As you bring the lower body up, exhale through pursed lips.
Bring the legs all the way up as high as you can, squeezing the abs hard. Now lower VERY slowly, fighting gravity on your legs all the way. Stop the lowering phase just before your lower back touches the floor. Be sure you don't let lower back go flat on floor between reps as this will keep the most tension on. Reverse the direction by pulling on the pole again and bring the lower body back up.
This exercise hits the abs from a very different direction and with very different tension. It's something you will most likely never have felt before! Switch which shoulder is braced against the pole on your next set.
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Common Errors:
1. Doing the exercise as a leg raise
As mentioned above, this is NOT a leg raise! This exercise is not for the lower abs. Visualize that you're still doing a crunching movement with your upper body. Since your upper body is locked down, your lower body must raise up, pivoting from your midback area.
2. Letting the lower back touch the floor between reps
For maximum results, keep the lower back off the floor in between reps unless you absolutely must rest. When you set your lower back down, the tension will come off the abs.
3. Going too fast
This is a very deliberate exercise and you must focus in order to feel it working properly. If you're whipping your legs up and down, you won't feel it properly in the abs.
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Tricks:
1. Adjusting the difficulty
The difficulty of this exercise can be adjusted in several ways. You can adjust the difficulty by moving your hands closer down to your shoulders, making the exercise harder. The higher you place your hands on the pole (as long as your elbows aren't straight), the easier the exercise will be as your abs will have greater leverage.
You can also adjust the amount of resistance that your abs must workout against by changing how much your knees and hips are bent. If you bring your knees up towards your chest, there is not as much resistance further out from the body and the exercise will be easier. The straighter your legs and hips, the harder the exercise will be. If you're adventurous, you can even try this exercise with ankle weights on.
2. Doing negative training
If you'd like to see how painful negative training is on the abdominals, use the bent-leg body position on the way up then at the top, straighten your legs and lower yourself down. This is best done towards the end of your ab workout.
3. One-handed grip
To send more tension through only one side of the abs, you can also try gripping the pole with only one hand (same side or opposite side, experiment with which you prefer) and doing the exercise. With a one-handed grip, one side of the abdominal wall will receive a lot more of the work. Be sure you've got strong abs before trying this one.
4. Using a towel to anchor yourself
You can loop a towel around a pole or solid object and grab onto the ends. This allows for more versatility in where and how to do the exercise. All you need is something solid that you can get the towel around and you're all set. You can also hold both ends of the towel with one hand in order to do one arm Inverse Crunches. This setup also makes it very easy to switch hands between reps.
5. Side Inverse Crunches
This exercise can also be adapted to work the side abs. Lay on your left side with your right arm gripping the pole (towel is actually easier to grip for this one) with your left arm flat on ground for balance (it can also be used to help move the lower body). Don't lay it directly out to the side but angled towards feet. The exercise is performed in exactly the same manner, pulling down on the pole in order to raise the lower body up. Don't touch your hip to the ground between reps and crunch up sideways.
6. Inverse Bench Crunches
If you're VERY strong in the abs, you can also try this exercise with your upper body on a bench so almost your entire body is suspended in the air (held up only by abdominal tension) as you do them. This should be done only by advanced trainers and even then only after you're very comfortable with the original exercise. Set a flat bench perpendicular to the pole, pressed up against the pole. Set your upper back on the bench and brace your shoulder on the bench as you do on the floor version. Your feet will be on the ground to start. Pull hard on the pole to develop tension in the abs then raise your lower body to the start position. Do the exercise exactly the same from there.
Video Demonstration Of This Variation
Windows WMV
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This exercise will really hit the sides and stabilizing core muscles strongly. Your entire midsection will feel much tighter after a few sets of this exercise.
I hope you enjoyed this bonus exercise!! And remember, these exercises that you have received to try out are only 6 out of a huge 77 exercises found in "The Best Abdominal Exercises You've Never Heard Of", all for only $29.95.
Best regards,
Nick Nilsson
Author of "The Best Abdominal Exercises You've Never Heard Of"
http://www.fitness-ebooks.com
http://www.fitstep.com