Bicycle Crunches for Athletes: Useful Accessory or Essential?

Bicycle crunches can be an optional abdominal exercise for athletes. They are not essential for athletic performance, and doing more repetitions does not automatically improve sprinting, throwing or changing direction.

Compare the exercise with the sporting task

The movement involves lying on your back, curling and rotating the trunk while the legs alternate. A sport may require rotation while standing, resisting contact, accelerating or reacting to another player. Those tasks involve different forces and coordination.

This does not make the exercise useless. It means its role should be modest and specific: for example, adding controlled abdominal work to a programme that already covers the athlete’s main needs.

Use a small trial, not a mandatory circuit

If you can perform the movement comfortably, try a short set after the important training rather than tiring the trunk before technical practice. Stop while repetitions remain controlled. Use the technique guide to establish a manageable version first.

During a busy competition week, ask whether another accessory exercise is needed at all. Existing strength work and sport practice may already create substantial trunk fatigue.

Track two separate outcomes

• Exercise outcome: a consistent range and number of controlled repetitions.
• Sport outcome: the actual performance measure or skill you aim to improve.

Do not attribute changes in a sprint or skill test to crunches when the whole training programme has changed. Exercise endurance and competitive performance are related only indirectly.

Choose another task when it fits better

If you need practice resisting rotation, a suitable anti-rotation press may be more relevant. If you want forceful standing rotation, discuss an appropriate progression with your coach rather than making floor crunches increasingly fast.

Keep bicycle crunches only if they offer useful, comfortable work at a manageable cost in time and recovery. They should support the training plan, not become a test of how much fatigue you can tolerate.