“The superstition, confusion, and fraud surrounding abdominal development are rampant. Much of this distortion, especially among ‘experts,’ comes from completely misunderstanding the vital role of the hip flexors in controlling and motivating athletic movement and specifically missing the complex interrelationship between the hip flexors and the abdominal muscles. The immediate result of this misunderstanding is the belief that hip flexion exercises are avoided or maligned by most trainers. This is where the ‘crunch’ came from. We put ‘crunch’ into Google and got 990,000 hits compared to 138,000 for ‘sit-up’; this largely reflects the sit-up’s demise and crunch’s dominance. While the crunch is a good exercise, the idea that it is somehow safer or superior to the sit-up is laughable.”
—Greg Glassman, 2003
The Elbow-Up