Band-loaded reach for that upper-ab snap.
Keep your legs straight up so the band stays taut and the abs stay loaded.
With your legs held straight up and the band strung across the arches of your feet, crunching your hands toward your toes puts the upper abs through a short, brutal range with tension added at the very top of the reach. Your legs are working too, holding vertical against gravity so the band stays taut for the reach. It is a compact crunch pattern where the band converts those last few centimetres into the hardest part of the rep.
You are pulling with your head instead of curling your ribs toward your pelvis. Keep your gaze up at your hands, chin off your chest, and let the abs lift the shoulder blades.
No, if the legs collapse toward you the band slackens and the reach gets artificially easy. Hold them vertical, stacked over your hips, so the target stays honest for every rep.
It trains the same upper-ab flexion but with a longer reach and band tension at the peak, so the contraction is harder to fake. Regular crunches are still fine, this is the loaded upgrade.
