The Ab Exercise Most People Get Wrong — and How to Get It Right

A strong core is essential for not just most workouts, but also posture, balance, and lower-back health. To strengthen those muscles, we’re big fans of ab workouts, whether they’re bodyweight, use fun equipment like sliders, or bring all the heat with dumbbells. But as much as we encourage people to work their ab muscles, they may not be getting the most out of the exercise if they don’t have proper form. NASM-certified personal trainer Guychard Codio, cofounder of New York City Personal Training, told PS that, if he could choose just one ab exercise that his clients tend to do wrong, it’s the bicycle crunch.

Bicycles are a move that a lot of people do, he said, but they don’t know how to rotate to fully engage their obliques and deep abs known as the transverse abdominis or TVA. Ultimately, people don’t use their entire torso and core to twist during bicycles; they just go through the motions with their elbows and use their head and neck instead. Feeling called out? Join the club.

There’s no need to beat yourself up if you occasionally cheat at a move like a bicycle crunch. After all, working out is hard, so it makes sense that we’re tempted to cut corners and make things easier where we can. But bicycling crunching without proper form means you’re losing out on some serious benefits — and even putting yourself at risk for pain. Here, more about what muscles bicycle crunches work, and how to ensure you’re practicing proper form.

Experts Featured in This Article

Guychard Codio is a NASM-certified personal trainer and cofounder of New York City Personal Training.

Bicycle Crunch Benefits

Bicycle crunches work your rectus abdominis (the “six-pack” muscles), obliques (the side abs), and transverse abdominis (the deep abs), and your hip flexors to boot.

But that’s only true if you’re doing the full motion, and mindfully engaging your core. To help clients learn how to properly engage their core in moves like the bicycle crunch, Codio has them do planks and side planks. “Learning where your muscles are and how they feel and how to engage them is key before you do some ab exercises,” Codio explains, adding that if you don’t learn how to engage your abs, you’ll be using other muscles to compensate, and this can also lead to lower back pain.