Core exercises come in many forms and with many equipment options. Find out how to do Bosu knee tucks and what they do for you.
Bosu knee tucks are an exercise where you lie down on a Bosu Ball, curl up your upper body, and move your knees toward your chest.
This movement still mainly works your hip flexors and abs similar to the regular version. However, because of the Bosu Ball, the movement also works your obliques a bit more.
That being said, you also need to know Bosu knee tucks have their downside.
First of all, even in regular knee tucks, it is hard to implement a technique where you really work your abs a nice amount.
Hip flexor training can be useful too but many people get interested in Bosu knee tucks because they want to work their core muscles.
Additionally, Bosu knee tucks are relatively challenging in terms of balance and coordination. This makes getting a good core workout with this exercise even harder.
So while Bosu knee tucks can offer benefits, there are many Bosu Ball core exercises and other alternatives that make training your core muscles easier.
How to do a Bosu knee tuck
Once you have a good Bosu Ball, take the following steps to do a Bosu knee tuck:
- Put the Bosu Ball with the flat side on the ground.
- Sit down on the Bosu Ball and tilt your upper body back and stretch your legs forward. You basically want to “lie down” on the Bosu Ball with your body in about a horizontal line. Keep your arms against your chest.
- Slowly curl up your shoulders and move your knees toward your chest at the same time. Your chest and knees should meet in about the middle.
- Lower your body back into the position of step 2 in a controlled motion.
Ideally, you want to keep your neck in one line with your upper body when doing Bosu knee tucks for comfort.
Additionally, to work your abs you want to bend your spine to move your shoulders toward your hips and back.
If you find the full version of the Bosu knee tucks above too challenging in terms of balance you can start by doing a variation where you keep your hands on the side of the Bosu Ball.
Bosu knee tucks muscles worked
The main muscles Bosu knee tucks work are your hip flexors and abs and to some extent your obliques.
You want to know that your abs are responsible for bringing your shoulders to your hips (and the other way around).
This is important because it is easy to do Bosu knee tucks in a way where you only move your upper body forward and backward with a straight spine.
A Bosu knee tuck like that would mainly work your hip flexors.
This can be helpful too but many people get interested in this exercise because they want to work their abs.
That aside, the instability of the Bosu Ball adds a bit of oblique engagement to the regular knee tuck exercise.
However, this instability also makes it harder to work your muscles optimally. Especially if you want to add weights like a dumbbell or ankle weights.
In short, it is possible to do Bosu knee tucks in a way that works your abs and hip flexors effectively. Even so, this is relatively challenging to do in terms of technique and balance.
The result is that for many people, Bosu knee tucks will be a suboptimal hip flexor exercise that works the abs and obliques to some extent.
Benefits of Bosu knee tucks
While Bosu knee tucks are not ideal for every fitness goal, this exercise will still offer certain benefits to some extent. Some of these include:
- Muscle endurance: Even if Bosu knee tucks are not challenging enough to actually help you grow and strengthen muscles, this movement could be enough to improve muscle endurance.
- Balance & coordination: Bosu knee tucks are relatively challenging in terms of balance and coordination. Doing exercises like this could help you improve these skills.
- May prevent back pain: By improving your ab and oblique muscle endurance with Bosu knee tucks, you reduce your risk of lower back issues (1, 2).
Again, Bosu knee tucks are likely not the best option for people who are interested in these benefits.
At the same time, they are likely better than doing no exercise at all.
Bosu Ball knee tuck alternatives
By now, you likely want to know about the more effective Bosu Ball knee tuck alternatives available. A few examples of these are:
- (Bosu Ball) Crunches
- (Bosu Ball) V-ups
- Double crunches
- (Bosu Ball) Bird dogs
- (Bosu Ball) Russian twists
- (Bosu Ball) planks
What muscles you want to work in what ways will play a big role in your decision between these Bosu Ball knee tuck alternatives.
Are Bosu knee tucks a good exercise?
It is possible to do Bosu knee tucks in ways that make it a decent ab exercise. Additionally, hip flexor exercises have their benefits too.
That being said, Bosu knee tucks will typically be suboptimal for working both of these muscle groups.
First of all, it is easy to do Bosu knee tucks in a way where you only move your entire upper body instead of just moving your shoulders to your hips.
This makes the movement more of a hip flexor exercise.
Secondly, Bosu knee tucks are relatively challenging when it comes to balance which makes it hard to get in a good resistance training exercise.
If you really like doing Bosu knee tucks, you can do them every once in a while even though they are not the best movement out there.
However, even then, you likely also want to implement more effective exercise alternatives that offer a lot of results.
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FAQ
What is a Bosu knee tuck?
A Bosu knee tuck is an exercise where you lie down on a Bosu Ball and move your shoulders toward your hips and your knees to your chest. This mainly works your hip flexors and abs and to some extent your obliques.
