Strong core muscles -- the abdominals and the lower back muscles -- improve functional strength and mobility not only for weight training and general sporting endeavors, but for everyday functionality as well.
The medicine ball, or medball, is a heavy, padded ball that comes in various weights and sizes. You can incorporate it into your exercise program for variety and excellent results.
The medball crunch requires you to lie on your back, hold a medball at the abdominal position, and swing the ball from side to side while raising the shoulders as you would in the traditional crunch.
This can be a challenging exercise if you do not have an existing degree of core and abdominal strength. Here's how to do it in steps.
- Lie on your back in the prone position with a medicine ball resting on the abdominal region and held with two hands.
- Raise your shoulders as you would for a traditional crunch exercise.
- Swing the medball from one side to the other without stopping for five swings each side. Do less to start with if you find this too difficult.
- Lower the shoulders and rest for 40 seconds. Take a little longer if you need to.
- Repeat the swings. Do 10 sets of five swings on both sides, or less to begin with if you need to.
There is another form of this exercise in which you bend more at the hips and raise the body higher and only complete one swing to one side before resting. Don't do that for this exercise.
That's it: The medicine ball swing crunch. Great for strengthening the abdominal muscles.
