Crunches are not the best exercise choice.  They are not optimal for your ab development OR the health of your spine.

This video details twenty two better options than the traditional crunch.  

The exercises included in this video will work your abs harder than 100 crunches and develop the athletic stability needed to have a healthy spine, and hips for the rest of your life.

Here's some more reading on better ways to train your abs. 

Let's also address a common rebuttal to ab exercise videos:

"The best ab exercise is putting the fork down!"

No.

The rectus abdominis (the six pack) is a muscle group. They can grow through resistance training just like any other muscle group.

It's like saying "the best bicep exercise is putting the remote down!" It might sound good and motivating but it's utter nonsense.

The best way to make your six pack visible is to lose belly fat, but that is only 1 small factor when it comes to abdominal strength and aesthetics. If you have no ab strength or they are untrained they still won't look impressive by dropping body fat.

You can have visible abs while still holding a bit of belly fat, if you train them frequently enough to make them grow. 

This saying has become the go to dumb saying for people who want to sound smart and snarky but whose training knowledge is shallower than a puddle. 

It also makes it seem like building a visible six pack is an easy attainable goal if you just ate less. That's not true at all. It's a grind, and maintaining a low enough body fat percentage to have all 6 abs visible is not possible for a sustained period of time.
 

Start Training Smarter.  Train Here.