A long, long time ago, I bought one of those ab crunch roller devices, the one that looks a bit like two snakes sitting up and whispering to each other about a nearby mouse. You lay back on the headrest, placed your arms on the bar above and sort of rocked forward and back. After a few weeks, I was draping jackets over it. I’m not saying it didn’t do the job, or that I had lots of jackets — I’m just saying it just didn’t do the job for me. Then, for a while, I ran and did no other exercise because when you’re young, you think you can do whatever the heck you please and your body will look after itself. Madness.
As I got older and learned more about the importance of core strength for overall stability, posture, and helping to protect against lower back pain — which had bedeviled me for years—I returned to core-strengthening work, and it has done the job for me. But I’ve often wondered about the side or oblique crunch. It’s always seemed ungainly and I’ve often felt I was putting pressure on my neck muscles, which was probably my body’s way of letting me know I wasn’t doing it properly. If you’ve ever felt that way, the side-to-side crunch may be just the thing for you.
