Pistol Crunch | Illustrated Exercise Guide

Primary muscles: Abs, lower back
Secondary muscles: Core, glutes, hip flexors, quads
Equipment: No equipment

Pistol Crunch Instructions

1. Sit with your legs bent and your hands right outside your hips.
2. Extend your right leg, lift the leg up and then lower it back down.
3. Bring your right knee into your chest, extend the leg and repeat the lift.
4. Complete one set and then repeat with the opposite leg.

Proper Form And Breathing Pattern

Engage your core and, for maximum benefits, keep the movement slow and controlled. Maintain your back straight, keep your neck and head relaxed and breathe out as you bring your knee to your chest.

From the Shop

Exercise Benefits

The pistol crunch engages your core and helps strengthen the abs, lower back, hip flexors, glutes, and quads. Even though this exercise appears to be easy, it’s actually quite effective and is great for sculpting long, lean, and feminine muscles.

Pistol Crunch Demonstration

Sets And Reps

Start with 3 sets of 12 to 16 repetitions on each side and, if you want to keep your heart rate in the “fat-burning zone”, pair the pistol crunch with the single leg side crunch and the skating windmill.

Calories Burned

To calculate the number of calories burned doing the pistol crunch, enter your weight and the duration of the exercise:

Related Core Exercises

Try these other core exercises to tighten, sculpt and strengthen your abs, obliques, lats and lower back:
V sit bicycles
Reverse crunch twist
T press
Ski abs

Popular Workouts

Core Workouts

15-Minute Abs & Obliques Superset

Move quickly from one exercise to the next while performing this 15-Minute Abs & Obliques Superset. Supersets help you finish your workouts …

Yoga Flows

Circulation Booster Yoga Flow

If you spend a lot of time sitting down and are worried about how that can affect your health, squeeze in our Circulation Booster Yoga Flow …

Lower Body Workouts

15-Minute Quad & Hamstring Superset

Advanced techniques like supersets are a form of strength training, in which you train a muscle group and then move quickly to train the …