Core Strengthening Exercises: sophisticated ab crunches in the video series about the best strengthening exercises for your abs and core muscles by John Sifferman

In part 1 and part 2 of this series, I covered plank and rotation exercises. In this video, we are going to go over something a little more familiar – the more traditional ab exercise, the abdominal crunch. I’m going to teach you a more sophisticated version, because regular old crunches just don’t have the training effect I want.

Regular crunches have a few qualities that I don’t like…

1) they create residual muscle tension, instead of relaxing the body
2) they increase your blood pressure needlessly
3) they are only comprised of a very shallow range of motion
4) they only focus on one degree of movement freedom – moving forward
5) they don’t include antagonist muscles (the lower back)

The sophisticated ab crunches I will be teaching you eliminate all of the above concerns, and they teach you to integrate your breathing, structure, and movement. These exercises are far superior to the traditional ab crunch and reverse crunch.

Core Strengthening Exercises – Sophisticated Crunches


The key with these more sophisticated ab crunches is the breathing component. You want to REALLY emphasize the exhalation when the lungs are being compressed, teaching your body to Be Breathed by your movement.

Your Question of the Day is: now that we know the outcome of the presidential election, how will you move forward?

To your health and success,

P.S. If you want a detailed look at how to perform these sophisticated crunches, as well as a lot more variations, check out Scott Sonnon’s Be Breathed DVD program.