Bent Knee Sit Ups

Ab Crunches Exercise

The abdominal muscle along with the chest make up the visual center of the body, however, we tend to carry more fat cells in the waist section, and there's a never ending "battle of the bulge". Every person must realize that you CAN'T spot reduce - meaning you can specifically target an area of your body, and hope to reduce fat only in that area.

Performing Abdominal Crunches will not give you washboard abs if you have a layer of fat covering up your hard work, nor will it help you specifically target the fat around the mid section. For great looking abs, you need a low enough body fat for your abdominal muscles to show, and this is more dependant on your diet and nutrition than performing massive amounts of sit ups.

The Sit Up

You can perform the sit up on a situp bench as shown in the photos below, or you can simply perform it lying flat on the floor. There are many variations of the ab crunch. Here, we just show a common one - the bent knee sit up.

Ab Crunch Execution

• Sit on the inclined ab bench with your feet hooked under the support
• Starting with your upper body at a 90 degree angle with your lower body
• Lower your upper body without touching your back to the bench
• Then bring yourself back up to the starting position

Hanging Leg Raise - Straight Leg Raise Exercise

The hanging leg raise exercise can be performed hanging from a chin up bar or using a setup as shown in the photos below. This exercise emphasizes the lower abdominal muscles.

Hanging Leg Raise Exercise

• Start off with your body straight, either hanging from a chin up bar or a leg raise apparatus
• Keeping your legs straight, raise them up as high as you can and hold at the top position for a moment (the more straight you keep your legs, the more resistance you add to this ab exercise)
• Lower your legs slowly back to starting position

Hanging Bent Knee Leg Raise

The hanging leg raise exercise can be performed hanging from a chin up bar or using a setup as shown in the photos below. Similar to the hanging straight leg raises, this exercise emphasizes the lower abdominal muscles.

Bent Knee Leg Raise Execution

• Either hanging from a chin up bar or supporting yourself up with a leg raise setup as shown in the photo above
• Keeping your upper body steady, bend your knees and raise them up as high as you can toward your chest
• Then lower your legs down to the starting position in a controlled motion