Crunches
The crunch is a floor exercise where you curl your upper back off the floor by flexing your spine. It trains your abs, mainly the rectus abdominis. The range is short, so every rep should be slow and squeezed. Pick it for direct ab work. Hold a weight on your chest to progress once higher rep sets feel easy.
Muscles worked
The crunches trains the abs.
Primary
Weekly sets for abs
Hard sets per week that Swole.fit plans for abs, counting every exercise that trains it. Start a cycle near the growth line and climb toward the recovery limit before a deload.
How to do the crunches
- 01Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor.
- 02Cross your arms over your chest or rest your fingertips lightly behind your ears.
- 03Exhale and curl your ribs toward your hips, lifting your shoulder blades off the floor.
- 04Pause at the top and squeeze your abs while your lower back stays on the floor.
- 05Lower slowly until your shoulders touch down, keeping tension in your abs.
Coaching cues
- Ribs to hips
- Exhale on the curl
- Chin stays off your chest
Common mistakes
- Yanking your head forward with your hands strains your neck; keep your hands light and your eyes on the ceiling.
- Sitting all the way up turns it into a hip flexor exercise; stop once your shoulder blades leave the floor.
- Flying through fast reps with no pause wastes the short range; squeeze for a second at the top.
How Swole.fit programs it
Log it once and the app plans the next session for you.
- Most sets land between 8 and 15 reps, the range the plan steers isolation work toward for size.
- Week one starts around 2 to 3 reps in reserve. Each week you train a little closer to failure, ending around 0 to 1 in reserve before a deload week.
- Once the top of the range is easy, Swole.fit suggests a harder variation or added load.
- Sets for this exercise count toward your weekly volume for every muscle it trains: a full set for the primary muscles, half a set for the helpers.
The full method, with the maths, is in how mesocycles work.
Crunches alternatives
Same muscles, different tool. Swap in one of these when the equipment is taken or your joints want a change.
Log it. Let the app plan the next one.
Track your crunches free. Swole.fit picks the next weight, counts your weekly sets and tells you when to deload.