Kneeling Cable Crunch

How to do it

1. Attach a rope to the high pulley and select a load you can control for ten to fifteen reps.
2. Kneel a couple of feet from the stack and hold the rope ends beside your head.
3. Set your hips over your knees and take the slack out of the cable so the abdominals are under tension.
4. Crunch the ribcage down toward the pelvis, rounding the spine and keeping the elbows fixed.
5. Pause at the shortest position and squeeze the abdominals hard.
6. Return to the start under control without letting the weight stack touch down.

Common mistakes

• Pulling the rope with the arms, which turns it into a lat exercise and unloads the abdominals.
• Hinging at the hips instead of flexing the spine, which removes the crunch entirely.
• Letting the load pull you upright between reps, which breaks tension at the top of every rep.
• Going too heavy and bouncing out of the bottom, which replaces contraction with momentum.