Purpose Of Oblique Cable Crunches
The oblique cable crunch is an exercise specifically designed to target the abs and obliques.
Equipment Needed To Perform Oblique Cable Crunches
As you would imagine, the equipment required to perform oblique cable crunches would be a (high) cable pulley, as well as a rope attachment.
Difficulty Of Oblique Cable Crunches
On a scale of 1 to 5, oblique cable crunches would rank around a 2.
Oblique cable crunches are fairly simple to do, but you must really concentrate on directing the stress onto the abs obliques, or it can be very easy to lose the connection with the muscles you are trying to stimulate most from doing this exercise in the first place.
How To Do Oblique Cable Crunches
As stated above, oblique cable crunches are relatively easy to perform, the challenge comes from the concentration required to actually direct the stress onto the desired musculature – which in this case is the abs and obliques.
To perform oblique cable crunches, begin by holding a rope attachment attached to a high cable pulley, and dropping down to your knees a foot or so away from the cable stack.
The rope should wrap around the back of your head, as if you were trying to tightly hold onto a scarf around the back of your neck.
Anchored on your knees, you begin the movement by focusing on contracting your abs to crunch down towards the floor, the same as you would when performing a cable crunch, only in this case, as you descend, you want to twist towards one side (whichever you prefer – just make sure to perform as many reps in which you twist to the opposing side as well), and end up in front of one of your knees.
Aim to bring your elbows into contact with your (left, or right) knee, and hold the contraction at the end of the range for 1-2 seconds before slowly reversing the movement.
Come up only as far as the tension is kept on the muscles before crunching back down, only this time towards the opposite knee.
Key Points When Performing Oblique Cable Crunches
1. Hold onto rope around back of neck, and drop to knees in front of cable stack.
2. Contract abs to bring your torso down towards the floor, while rotating simultaneously towards one knee.
3. Pause at the end of the range of motion before slowly reversing the movement, and repeat for the other side.
How Many Reps When Performing Oblique Cable Crunches
The abs, and obliques, are generally not muscles you want to train “heavy,” as the risk of injury far outweighs any potential reward that would accompany doing so.
Therefore, the ideal amount of reps would be anywhere between 12-20.
The abs and obliques, probably more so than any of the more popular muscles people wish to train when they go to the gym, require a great deal of concentration to promote the desired effect, so the weight must be light enough to facilitate that, but still heavy enough to require a strong contraction to take place to actually move the weight in the first place.
Common Mistakes When Performing Oblique Cable Crunches
Some of the more common mistakes when performing oblique cable crunches are:
- Using too much weight – what happens when there is too much weight is people will generally use their bodyweight to help assist with the movement (which entirely defeats the purpose of choosing this exercise in the first place). To facilitate the movement they will also contract other, non-desired muscle groups like the lats, which thus reduces the demand on the areas you wanted to work in the first place.
- Failure to intentionally direct stress onto the abs and obliques – often times people just go through the motions when training abs and obliques, and aren’t actually focusing on the muscles they are trying to develop. It can become very easy to just go through the motions when training these muscles because the truth of the matter is that training them correctly can be extremely uncomfortable, so instead of intentionally making things more uncomfortable for oneself, the easier route is to just go back and forth and hope for the same outcome – sadly it does not work this way.
- Failing to breathe on each rep – to fully engage the abs it is very important to fully exhale your breath at the end of each rep
Modifications To Oblique Cable Crunches
There aren’t really any worthwhile modifications to oblique cable crunches that can be made, and them still be referred to as oblique cable crunches.
While you can choose to eliminate the rotational aspect, doing so would turn the exercise into a cable crunch, not an oblique cable crunch.
When To Do Oblique Cable Crunches
Oblique cable crunches can be used at any point during a training session in which the goal is to target and develop the midsection.
They can be used at the beginning, or the end, although if you are too fatigued it can be very difficult to deliberately keep the tension on the intended musculature.
Alternatives To Oblique Cable Crunches
The primary alternative to the oblique cable crunch would be a standard oblique crunch, which can be performed pretty much anywhere, as all you need is a floor.
Oblique Cable Crunches vs. Oblique Crunches
The benefit to oblique cable crunches over regular oblique crunches is that you can vary the resistance, as well as the fact that the cable will allow you to keep the muscles under constant tension throughout the movement. You can position yourself in such a way, should you choose to, to increase the demand on the obliques better than you may be able to when performing regular oblique crunches.
The benefit to regular oblique crunches over oblique cable crunches is that they can be done anywhere, since no cable apparatus is required to perform them – thus making them a lot more practical in most cases.
As you can see, there are a lot of similarities between the oblique cable crunch, and cable crunch, as the only real difference is the rotational element to impose a demand on the obliques.