This blog post was inspired by a conversation I had with a client just this week. My client was telling me about how her 10-year old son was being tested on crunches in PE class. He apparently could not do a single crunch. Of course, he got laughed at…I mean, even the girls could do it. (Just imagine the scene here.) So he was completely embarrassed and who knows, maybe that experience will stay with him the rest of his life.

Crunch with feet on ball. Photo: iStock.com

I should point out that this boy is not overweight and plays soccer regularly. Neither his mom nor I think he wasn’t strong enough to do a crunch. I think the problem lies in how he was told to do the crunch. Now, I wasn’t there, so I don’t know how it went down, but there are a lot of different ways to coach someone through any exercise. If the teacher said, “use your abs” or “contract your abs” or anything that included an internal cue, it could be very difficult to perform.

There is a neuromuscular connection meaning as you train, the brain starts talking to the muscles better. This boy is 10 yrs. old and I’m sure that connection is not well established at this point in his life. Even for novice adult exercisers, this brain to muscle connection can be developed and improved. So, if you’re telling someone to use muscles to initiate movement, the exercise may get lost in the translation from the brain.

Focusing on external cues may be a better way to teach any exercise. In the case of the crunch, some cues I use are:

• “Create space between your back and the floor.”
• “Imagine there’s a string pulling you off the floor towards the ceiling.”
• Or, I might even provide a target for the person to touch.  The target is usually my hand.

If you’re learning new exercises, focus on the movement first rather than the muscle creating that movement.

What cues have you heard that have helped you master an exercise?  Leave a comment below!