Ab Crunches

Perhaps the most basic exercise to do for your abdominal muscles and im sure one that most people have done at least once. This front version of the crunch will really only work your rectus abdominus (your 'six pack') muscle so its a good idea to use this exercise in conjunction with another that targets the whole of the 'core' area so as not to overdevelop just the stomach.

1) Lying on your back, bring your feet up towards your glutes and bend your knees.
2) Fix your eyes on a point on the ceiling a little way forward of your knees as this will keep the neck steady.
3) Place your hands on your thighs.
4) Using just your abs, 'crunch' upwards so your shoulders rise off the ground and your hands travel over your knees.
5) Squeeze at the top and then slowly lower back down, keeping your eyes on that fixed position.

Abdominal muscles are just like any other muscle in the body and need constant over-loads of resistance if they are going to develop and grow. You wouldnt do 100 reps of a light weight on arm curls if you wanted to get big biceps would you? So, once you can correctly perform perhaps 20 crunches, start holding a weight across your chest or in your arms so that the exercise becomes hard again. Doing hundreds and hundreds of crunches just takes you far longer and wont produce the results you are looking for (unless of course that result is to do hundreds and hundreds of crunches!)