Exercise library

How to do the Cable Reverse Crunch

A beginner isolation exercise using cable, working the abdominals.

Primary musclesAbdominals
Secondary musclesNone recorded
EquipmentCable
LevelBeginner
TypeIsolation
ForcePull

Steps

  1. Connect an ankle strap attachment to a low pulley cable and position a mat on the floor in front of it.
  2. Sit down with your feet toward the pulley and attach the cable to your ankles.
  3. Lie down, elevate your legs and bend your knees at a 90-degree angle. Your legs and the cable should be aligned. If not, adjust the pulley up or down until they are.
  4. With your hands behind your head, bring your knees inward to your torso and elevate your hips off the floor.
  5. Pause for a moment and in a slow and controlled manner drop your hips and bring your legs back to the starting 90-degree angle. You should still have tension on your abs in the resting position.
  6. Repeat the same movement to failure.

Tracking it in OneRep

Add the cable reverse crunch to a routine and your previous weight and reps sit beside every set, so the decision to add load is made by what is already on the screen rather than by memory. Exercise history and volume trends are one tap away, and logging works offline for the gyms where signal does not reach.

Because OneRep tracks food on the same timeline, a stall on this lift can be read against what you were actually eating that month — which is the difference between a programming problem and an eating one. More on that in tracking progressive overload without a spreadsheet.

Where the instructions come from

The steps above come from free-exercise-db, a public-domain exercise dataset. They are general guidance, not coaching for your body: if a movement hurts, stop and get someone qualified to look at it.