Day 9 keeps everything off the floor. The circuit is high crunches, folded crunches, the dead bug and half wipers - 30 seconds each, two minutes end to end - and in three of the four your legs are in the air the entire time. Level 3 shows up here not in the difficulty of any single exercise but in the fact that nothing gets to touch down and rest.
The card runs a curl, a rotation and two anti-rotation positions. High crunches curl the shoulders up toward legs held vertical, taking the hip flexors out of the equation. Folded crunches change the geometry: the knees are drawn up and folded across to one side with the hands behind the head, so the curl is loaded diagonally before you have even started, which is what puts it squarely in the obliques. The dead bug then reverses the flow entirely, extending opposite arm and leg away from the body while the lower back stays pinned to the floor. Half wipers finish with the arms spread wide and the bent knees rotating from centre to the side and back - the same rotation as the folded crunch, now controlled from the bottom up.
In high crunches, keep the legs still and vertical; wobbling legs mean the abs are being helped. In folded crunches, curl straight up out of the twist rather than adding more rotation with your arms. In the dead bug, the lower back is the referee: the moment it lifts, your range for the day has been found. In half wipers, press both shoulders down and control the knees on the way back to centre - lowering slowly is the whole exercise.
Same two minutes, and every single one of them spent above the floor.
Make it Harder: Lower the extending leg closer to the floor in the dead bug - the closer it travels, the heavier your core has to work.
Make it Easier: Cross your arms over your chest instead of behind your head in the folded crunches.
