Sit-ups can be a great way to strengthen your abdominal muscles that sit around your stomach. But they can quickly get repetitive and its easy to accidentally lose your form, so when boredom strikes, use this crunch variation instead to work your abs and core muscles.
The crunch clapping exercise is exactly as it sounds — you’ll perform a crunch and a clap together while working your core muscles hard. It’s a take on the standard crunch exercise, helping increase engagement and range of motion compared with some other crunch variations.
You can do the exercise just about anywhere, although I recommend one of the best yoga mats for your back as you’ll be lying on the floor. You can do them in several ways, but the most popular starting positions involve sitting in a v-sit position or laying on your back; you’ll then raise your legs away from the floor, reach around them and clap your hands together as you crunch with your stomach.
Here are the benefits of crunch claps for building powerhouse core muscles, and why you might consider adding them to your ab workouts.
What is a crunch clap?
As mentioned, crunch claps involve bringing the hands together around the backs of the legs as you crunch from a seated or supine position. The abdominal exercise builds stronger core muscles and primarily dials into the six-pack abs — the rectus abdominis.
What’s the difference between a crunch and a sit-up?
Sit-ups use a greater range of motion as you use your core muscles to pull your torso upward into a seated position.
During sit-ups, you’ll move from a laying position to fully seated, so while the exercise hits the abs hard (muscles active during spinal flexion), you’ll also switch on a few other muscle groups, including your hip flexors, internal and external obliques and deeper core muscles known as the transverse abdominis.
Crunches are more of an isolation exercise using less range of motion, meaning you’ll only lift your upper back away from the floor, so the main focus will be on the abs as you flex and extend. The greater the range of motion, the more you load your hip flexors and the greater the requirements on your lower back.
Try to include a range of core exercises in your workouts to target various muscle groups and build a well-rounded powerhouse core; the easiest way to do this is to consider exercises that work in different planes of motion, including rotation, flexion, extension and lateral movements.
In yoga, mandala sequencing can help tap into this concept, where you'll move around the mat in a circle, but in functional training and sports, it’s more widely known as multi-directional movement.
For those working with disc and lower back pain or injury, sit-ups and crunches could well be off the table completely. It’s important to work with a medical professional, rehab specialist, or personal trainer if you’re unsure of the most effective abs exercises for your body.
How to do crunch claps
You can attack the abs exercise in a few ways. Here’s how:
- Start laying on your back with your lower back pressed gently on the mat
- Brace your stomach,
- Lift your shoulder blades away from the floor, then reach forward with your arms
- At the same time, draw one leg toward you, then clap your hands behind the leg
- Return to the starting position, then repeat on the other side
- Keep your gaze ahead and neck neutral as you move.
If you prefer, keep both legs raised to 90 degrees, then reach and clap between one or both legs without dropping your legs down. If this feels too easy, try extending your legs. Another variation you can try includes starting from a seated position similar to a V-sit.
During this variation, sit with your legs extended and lift them away from the floor. Slightly lean back and brace your stomach, then bend and raise one leg toward you, clap behind the leg and extend the leg again, moving between your left and right sides. This variation relies more on the hip flexors and deeper core muscles for stabilization and to help raise the leg as you move.
If you plan to try crunch claps, the exercise could help build muscular endurance — your ability to sustain exercise. A strong core that can endure will help you during sports like running, weightlifting, soccer, and other forms of movement, including yoga and Pilates.
In fact, one study published by the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness concluded that small doses of “crunch exercise training” as little as one day per week could increase endurance in untrained people.
More from Tom's Guide
- No, not push-ups — here's one exercise you need to strengthen your upper body without weights
- I tried this ab workout with 420 million views, here's what happened
- I tried the Lily Sabri 7-day ab challenge — and I'm shocked by the results
