Nothing to do with tendons this time, but I wanted to post a quick note about something I just discovered. Want to make your crunches more effective? Here are a couple of tweaks:
1.) If you’re doing the exercise on a bench or other raised platform, position your body so that your head is hanging off the end. This will do two things. One, you can get a better torso extension as you relax your abs, and two, you can work your neck a bit at the same time that you’re training your midsection.
2.) Try vacuuming your stomach while you do the crunches. I tried this a few days ago and was surprised (really surprised) at how much more “burn” I got in my abs versus not doing the vacuum.
If you don’t know how to do a stomach vacuum, basically you let most of your air out and then try to touch your bellybutton to your spine. This activates the transverse abdominis, which is a band of muscle that runs around your midsection, keeping everything tight and in place (and hilariously described as “the Spanx of the abdomen” in one meme I saw). It is the deepest layer of abdominal muscle, and doesn’t get hit by traditional ab exercises. Here is a shot of the great Frank Zane doing a stomach vacuum:
So there you have it. Give these tips a shot the next time you train abs and feel the difference!