Straight-Leg Crunches
Straight-leg crunches are a variation of standard crunches. The movement is essentially the same, with the only difference being that you keep your legs extended on the floor. Keep a slight bend in your knees to relieve stress on the lower back. Raise your shoulders off the mat and contract your abdominal muscles.
Raise up as high as you can, pausing at the top of the movement to emphasize the contraction of the upper abs, then return to the starting position. There is really no other way to work the upper abs other than with crunches; this is why it is a good idea to do as many variations of the standard exercise as possible. By keeping your legs straight on the floor as demonstrated here, the exercise becomes a little more difficult as you are forced to "pull" upwards with your abs more than with regular crunches. Keep in mind though that the upper abs also usually get worked quite a bit when training the obliques (mainly with exercises like oblique crunches and cross crunches ). Therefore, you do not really need to do any overly challenging movements or excessive amounts of reps when working the upper abs on their own, providing you have done a fair amount of work for the obliques. Difficulty Rating: 1
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