Slow V-UP Crunch
This exercise is similar to the floor crunch with feet up, but it adds extra elements of movement, control, and lower abdominal work. Basically you are doing a lower and upper abdominal exercise at the same time and you have to time them together to keep the exercise in sync.
The crunch portion is essentially going to be a regular crunch, except you will hold your arms above your head and in line with your torso as much as possible. The tendency most people have is to bring their arms down/forward when crunching up, but this is a cheat that adds momentum and allows the upper abs to do less work.
The other part of the exercise is moving both your legs up and down at the same time (bending at the hips, not the knees), while trying to keep you low back as flat as possible. The straighter your legs are, the more difficult the exercise becomes, so you can change the amount of bend in your knees to find the difficulty that is right for you.
Traditional V-ups are often performed quickly and people frequently try to touch their hands to their toes, but this version is different. The goal is to keep your hands back (not reach towards your toes) and have the upper body and lower body movements start and stop each rep at the same time.
If you find that the crunch or leg raise portion finishes faster than the other one, slow down the movement that finishes first. For instance, if you finish crunching while your legs are only halfway to their end position, the speed of the crunch has to slow down by half. Since your legs will move a greater distance than your upper body, the crunch will be a slower movement and getting the timing right between them is one of the big challenges.
The leg movement should finish when your thighs are perpendicular to the ground (knees directly over hips) and moving them further makes the exercise less effective. The amount you lower your legs towards the ground depends on the amount of bend in your knees and the strength of your lower abs.
You probably won’t be able to keep your low back pressed into the ground like during other lower abdominal exercises, but there shouldn’t be too much arching in your low back. If this happens, it means your legs are lowering too far or your legs are too straight.
Perform up to 15 reps of each exercise and breather out when raising your torso and legs to the top position.
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