Cable Reverse Crunch
Trains the Abs.
- Equipment
- A cable station
- Mechanic
- Isolation
- Force
- Pull
- Level
- Beginner
How to do it
- Set a low pulley with ankle straps and lie on your back with your feet toward the machine.
- Attach the straps and hold something solid above your head to anchor your upper body.
- Start with your hips and knees bent to about a right angle, cable taut.
- Curl your hips off the floor toward your ribs, drawing the knees toward your chest.
- Stop where the hips have lifted and the lower back is pressed down.
- Lower under control against the cable's pull, stopping before the lower back arches.
Common mistakes
- Swinging the knees to generate momentum. If the knees whip toward the chest and the hips barely move, the hip flexors are doing it — the hips leaving the floor is the repetition.
- Letting the lower back arch as the legs go back out. That is the abdominal wall letting go; the range below that point is being held by the spine.
- Anchoring on something that can slide. The cable pulls you toward the machine for the whole set, and the anchor is what keeps the hips in one place.
- Loading it to the point where the hips never leave the floor. If the pelvis is not curling, the exercise has become a resisted hip flexion drill, which is a fine movement but not an abdominal one.