Abdominal Air-Bike Exercise

Abdominal Air-Bike Exercise

The air-bike is an abdominal exercise where you lie on your back, crunch up and move your legs in the air like if you were riding a bike. This exercise trains the front
portion of your abdominals and the obliques (obliques = sides of the abs). Find more abdominal exercises at weight training and bodybuilding.

Execution

  • Lie down on your lower back and don't let your shoulder blades touch the floor. Put your hands behind your head to support your neck. Start with your lower legs horizontal and your thighs 90 degrees.
  • Crunch up, twist your trunk and let your left elbow touch the inside of your right knee. Extend the left knee and bring the right knee closer to the chest. The flatter you extend the left leg, the better the air-bike exercise is for your abdominals.
    • A common mistake: Some people don't really crunch up. Instead they roll on the back to the left and to the right. This is wrong and doesn't train out the abdominals at all.
  • Move back down, but not too far. The shoulder blades should not touch the floor. Bring your upper body and your feet back to the beginning position.
  • Crunch up again, but now twist your trunk to the other side and touch the inside of your left knee with your right elbow. Extend the right knee.
  • Again, go back to the beginning position and then crunch up twisting to the left again. Alternate left and right air-bike crunches (between 24 and 50 repetitions). It should look like if you were cycling slowly in the air.

Advice

  • Move slowly and concentrated. Feel the contraction in your abdominals.
  • Don't pull with your hands to create momentum. Your hands are only behind your head to support your neck.
  • If you can easily do more than 50 repetitions, you are probably not concentrating on the abdominal contraction enough, move to fast or rest on your upper back after every repetition.
  • Use "this waist stretch" to stretch your abdominals after the air-bike.