Bicycle Crunches | Illustrated Exercise Guide

Primary muscles: Abs, obliques
Secondary muscles: Glutes, hip flexors, quads
Equipment: No equipment
Exercise for the opposite muscles: Bird dogs

BICYCLE CRUNCHES INSTRUCTIONS

1. Lie on your back, lift your shoulders off the mat and raise both legs.
2. Bring one knee and the opposing elbow close to each other by crunching to one side, and fully extend the other leg.
3. Return to the starting position and then crunch to the opposite side.
4. Repeat until the set is complete.

PROPER FORM AND BREATHING PATTERN

When doing bicycle crunches, engage your core muscles, open the elbows and keep your neck relaxed. Breathe out as you crunch, keep your shoulder blades off the mat and maintain a steady rhythm throughout the entire exercise.

EXERCISE BENEFITS

Adding bicycle crunches to your workout routine helps to increase core strength, slims down your waist and improves your stability and flexibility. This exercise works your abs and obliques and because it keeps your body moving constantly, boosts your heart rate and burns even more calories.

DEMONSTRATION

SETS AND REPS

Start with 3 sets of 12 to 20 repetitions and, if you feel that this exercise is too challenging for you, don’t fully extend the legs.

CALORIES BURNED

To calculate the number of calories burned doing bicycle crunches, enter your weight and the duration of the exercise:

RELATED CORE EXERCISES

Try these other core exercises to tighten, sculpt and strengthen your abs, obliques, lats and lower back:
Cobra lat pulldown
Cross crunches
V sit
Russian twist