Core · Medicine Ball
Crunch with Medicine Ball
How to do the crunch with medicine ball, the muscles it works, and the mistakes to avoid. Pulled straight from the Kovo app's exercise library.
- Equipment
- Medicine Ball
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
- Logged as
- Weighted reps
- Movement
- Flexion
- Mechanic
- Isolation
How to do it
Lie on your back with knees bent, holding a medicine ball against your chest or extended overhead. Crunch up by curling your rib cage toward your pelvis, then lower under control. The ball's weight adds resistance to the abs.
- 1A strong contraction through your entire abdominal wall
- 2The rib cage curling down toward the pelvis, driven by the abs
- 3The ball's weight adding load as you crunch up
Common mistakes
- Pulling with your neck or arms instead of the abs
- Using your hip flexors to initiate the movement
- Jerky motion or momentum instead of a smooth curl
Muscles worked
The crunch with medicine ball mainly works the upper abs and lower abs, with the obliques assisting.
- Upper AbsPrimary
- Lower AbsPrimary
- ObliquesSupport
- QuadsMinor
Kovo programs the crunch with medicine ball for you and tracks it every session.
We build your whole program, drop the right lifts into each workout, and adjust your weights as you get stronger. Free on iOS and Android.
More abs & core exercises
- How to do the ab wheel rollout
- How to do the ankle tap plank
- How to do the ankle taps
- How to do the resistance band dead bugs
- How to do the resistance band pallof press
- How to do the rollout
Last reviewed June 2026.