>>75865753
don't hold the bars, they're a noob trap, bring your elbows to the interior edge of the pads, and cross your hands over each other's arms' - kind of like the genie pose, knuckles up, left hand touching right elbow and vice versa

stretch all the way up, even past the machine, until you're arched, inhale deep and pinch your abs to your spine, creating stability in your abdominal belt. keep your chin tucked toward your arms but don't go kyphotic, just keep your head down so you don't start using it to cheat the reps - everything above your nipples should be frozen like one solid lever

from there, imagine bring your nipples DOWN in a straight line to the two points of your iliac crest, being those bits of your pelvis and hipbones that stick out at the bottom of your abs. you are trying to shorten the distance and crunch your abs and to do that you need to force a specific curvature in your spine - because you're not just folding closed from one end to the other, you're trying to fold just the middle 40-50% of your body, right? so your chest needs to crunch down to your pelvis, NOT your SHOULDERS + CHEST, FOLDING, down to your legs like most people do

when you reach the peak of this contraction, keep holding that breath, and really, really squeeze and pinch your abs back toward your spine, and only as you come back up - controlling the negative and maintaining that same squeeze in the abdominals - do you start to exhale

i can draw a series of pictures to explain it better if that'll help. these machines are designed like fucking dogshit but at the end of the day all it needs to do is create resistance on that path of nipples to hips

personally i prefer cable crunches MUCH more. comparatively to cable crunches in the effort-to-gains ratio, pure ease of use, and mastering the form and the mind-muscle connection, this machine is an absolute joke

Back | Go to board

Board:

/fit/

Thread:

>Does absolutely nothing for your abs. If anything, it just hurts your low back