Here’s a powerful conditioning exercise for your obliques–Catcher Crunches! Strength in your side body is essential for climbs, drops, and a variety of aerial skills. This can also be adapted for sling, trapeze, lyra, and other apparatuses.
- Start in catcher’s with two extra wraps. Keep your wrapped leg engaged and extended the whole time.
- Put your hands behind your head and alternate tagging each elbow to your hooked knee. Don’t sweat it if you don’t reach all the way.
- Try to release back down from each rep with control
- Try 2-3 sets of 4-8 per side. I like to do all sets on one side before switching to save time and energy.
I think these are a great exercise to incorporate into regular training, since we sometimes can neglect the obliques in favor of the rectus abdominis (she’s really the star of the show, but she’d be lost without her backup dancers).
Give it a try and let me know how it goes! Meanwhile, you can receive a free full follow-along splits video and a silks tutorial by signing up for my newsletter, link in sidebar. If you’re already on my newsletter, just send me a message.
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