Benefits of Standing Bicycle Crunches

Standing bicycle crunches are also known as standing criss cross exercise. Standing bicycle crunches have proven to be more functional than regular bicycle crunches.

For those who want to know whether these are a good exercises for burning fat, well, they are most effective for strengthening your ab muscles, more than if your primary goal is to lose weight. Bicycle crunches don’t work off fat, even from your belly, because they don’t burn a whole heap of calories.

People say bicycle crunches are hard because the bicycling of your legs engages the transverse abdominis. These are worked when you do leg raises, which are the deepest of the ab muscles and quite tough to target.

An Introduction To Standing Bicycle Crunches for Women

If you do a lot of your abdominal exercises lying on a mat on the floor and doing them properly, you activate your abdominal muscles in a way that helps to build strength and definition. If you do them wrong, you won’t have much to show for it and could injure your back even. Don’t get stuck in a rut; do a variety of exercises to target all the muscles in the core region. With a total of 29 muscles in your abdomen, back, and pelvis, you want to reach as many of them as you can. And one variation of doing abdominal exercises is doing standing bicycle crunches. Standing bicycle crunches are more functional than regular bicycle crunches.

Way back in 2001, the American Council on Exercise, which encouraged people to live a more active, healthy life. Here’s a study to find out what exactly were the best ab exercises. The winner turned out to be the bicycle crunch. And the reason it was so successful was that it enlists so many muscles. It literally hits the lower and upper abs as well as the obliques, all in one single exercise.

The standing bicycle crunch exercises are the same but you are simply standing when performing them.

Benefits of Standing Bicycle Crunches for Women

Standing bicycle crunches are a great variation on the traditional bicycle crunch, particularly for those who experience difficulty with mobility. Also those who are looking to improve their balance, because getting down and on the floor and back up again can be pretty difficult for seniors or those recovering from injuries. Here are some advantages of standing bicycle crunches:

• Improved balance – The standing bicycle crunch allows you to improve your balance and your core strength at the same time.
• Strengthened oblique muscles – Standing bicycle crunches emphasize the oblique muscles of the core. This strengthens them and promotes a stronger abdominal cavity.
• More calories are burned – Because you are standing while you are performing this exercise, you will burn more calories compared to lying on your back due to the additional muscles that get involved in the movement.
• Beneficial for people with atrial fibrillation – Standing crunches have proven to be exceptional for those who suffer from atrial fibrillation. They are low enough in intensity not to get the heart-rate all spiked up.
• Muscle straining and spinal injury are avoided – Standing bicycle crunches reduce the risk of straining your neck and injuring your lower back. If you have a poor technique with ab exercises while lying on the floor, this can lead to a variety of spinal problems, and it can be stressful to try and have proper form when doing floor exercises.
• Firmed thighs and hamstrings – Besides working your abs, you will also be toning your thighs as both your hamstrings and quads will be involved with bicycling.
• Improved abs and cores – Doing a variety of ab and core exercises ensures you are engaging your muscles in different ways.

How To Perform Standing Bicycle Crunches

1. Stand with your feet hip-width apart using a good straight posture.
2. Tighten your core.
3. Now, bring your left knee up and slightly over while bringing your right elbow down and across your core while twisting your core to the left. The elbow and knee should touch gently in the middle of your core. Try and hold the contraction for a few seconds before releasing. You need not worry if you battle to perform this exercise freestanding. You can stand by holding onto a sturdy chair or against a wall to perform the exercise until you are comfortable doing it without assistance.
4. Keeping the core engaged, slowly return the left leg and elbow to their original position.
5. Now you can repeat on the other side.
6. Don’t worry – here we show you how to do it!

Common Mistakes

• If you are in the first trimester of your pregnancy, you should avoid doing crunches.
• If it hurts you to perform spinal flexion, which is forward bending, don’t do them.
• Don’t do standing bicycle crunches if you have a herniated disc.

Even though standing bicycle crunches are suitable for everyone regardless of their level of fitness, just be aware to avoid common mistakes.

Safety Precautions

To begin with, you should speak to your doctor about doing crunches and whether they are appropriate for you. On the floor, without proper form, you can stress the neck and compress the spine. If you have any back problems, always be aware of how your lower back feels as you do the exercises and stop them if you find your back is straining. The advantage of standing bicycle crunches is that, as with all standing ab exercises, you lower the risk of straining your neck or hurting your back. In the standing position, there is no need to lie on your back or pull your neck.

Conclusion

Properly performed abdominal exercises done on the floor and standing bicycle crunches offer wonderful benefits to the abs. When you are looking to produce stunning looking abs, you know how good training varieties and good nutrition are a must, particularly if you want to define the muscles. Remember that when you invest time in high-intensity resistance exercises for great abs, plus healthy living, which means eating the right foods, your patience is eventually going to be rewarded; with enviously stunning abs.

The reason many people try standing bicycle crunches is they want to add variety to their workout. So, don’t let your abdominal routine just get stale to the point that you no longer enjoy yourself because once your muscles adapt, they stop changing. Standing cycling crunches are a very good way you can break out of a stagnant ab rut and break away. Just do it!