Crunch

Muscles worked: Abs.

How to do it

1. Lie flat on your back with your feet flat on the ground, or resting on a bench with your knees bent at a 90 degree angle.
2. Now place your hands lightly on either side of your head keeping your elbows in.
3. While pushing the small of your back down in the floor to better isolate your abdominal muscles, begin to roll your shoulders off the floor.
4. Continue to push down as hard as you can with your lower back as you contract your abdominals and exhale.
5. After the one second contraction, begin to come down slowly again to the starting position as you inhale.

Coaching cues

The two cues IronPack shows on this exercise's card mid-workout:

• Lift only the shoulder blades off the floor
• Ribs to hips - don't yank the neck

Logging it

IronPack suggests working in the 12 to 25 rep range, progressing in 1 kg jumps when you own the top of the range. Bodyweight movement: log added weight only, and your records account for your logged bodyweight. Records are tracked automatically at every rep count from 1 to 12. Check your estimated 1RM from any hard set.

Related exercises

• Cable Crunch - abs
• Hanging Leg Raise - abs
• Ab Wheel Rollout - abs
• Ab Crunch Machine - abs

Photos and steps: free-exercise-db (public domain). Cues, muscle weighting and logging guidance are IronPack's own app data. Last generated 2026-07-17.