The long arm crunch is an abdominal exercise that uses your arms as resistance. This exercise takes advantage of the physics of levers -- extending your arms overhead creates more resistance than having them behind your head because the weight is farther away from the pivot point, which is your stomach muscles.
The Basics
Lie on your back on the floor or on a mat. Bend your knees and place your feet flat on the floor. Extend your arms overhead. You can clasp your hands together if you prefer. Exhale and crunch up, pulling your shoulder blades and your arms off the floor. Keep your arms in line with your ears; do not pull your arms forward. Keep your neck in a neutral position. Inhale as you slowly lower back down.
Muscles Worked
The long arm crunch targets your abdominal muscles. It mainly works your rectus abdominis, which is your main ab muscle, but it does hit your obliques, which are your side abs, as well. The American Council on Exercise, or ACE, a nonprofit fitness watchdog organization, used electromyography equipment to test how much muscle activity different ab exercises generated. Compared with a standard crunch, the long arm crunch engaged the rectus abdominis 19 percent more and the obliques 18 percent more.
Effectiveness
Although the long arm crunch did activate the abdominal muscles more than a standard crunch in the ACE study, it did not fare as well as other abdominal exercises. The top two exercises, the bicycle maneuver and the captain's chair, engaged the rectus abdominis muscle 148 percent more and 112 percent more than the standard crunch, respectively. Several other ab exercises performed better than the long arm crunch, including the stability ball crunch and the vertical leg crunch.
Considerations
For the long arm crunch to be effective, you have to keep your arms in line with your ears. If you pull your arms forward while crunching, this negates the extra resistance created by the weight of your arms. Done properly, the long arm crunch is a more challenging exercise than the standard crunch because of the extra weight. If you cannot perform the long arm crunch with good form, keeping your head in a neutral position, strengthen your core with other ab exercises first.
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