crunch

The most heated argument in strength and conditioning today is to crunch or not to crunch. It's bewildering that this seemingly harmless, short ROM exercise could create such a rift between so many smart strength and conditioning professionals, yet the great crunch debate rages on. At the...

Go into almost any gym and you’ll see people doing exercises like sit-ups and leg raises. They believe these are the best exercise for abs. But they’re not — it’s crunch exercises. Here’s an experiment. Stand up and hold onto something for balance. Put your other hand on your abs. Now, raise...

A study conducted by the University of Wisconsin compared 16 abdominal exercises, looking at which one activated upper and lower abs the most. It found that no exercise was able to top the standard crunch for engaging both the upper and lower abs. That doesn’t mean a little variation is out of...

QUESTION Merlin, I have a question about abs. Even though I have gotten my body fat as low as about 4%, I fail to display “contest winning” abs. They look pretty good when I ex them but kind of disappear when relaxed. How does one go about creating abdominals that look like bricks? ANSWER...