Should I Do Sit Ups?
February 28, 2011
by Stephen R. Santangelo
http://www.primalfitness-systems.com/articles/archives/2011/exercises/should-i-do-sit-ups.html
Sit Ups have long been a staple in exercise programs for decades. In the late 70’s sit ups suddenly became the evil of mankind regarding ab exercises and the crunch took over. Crunches dominated the 6 pack ads with misguided information for nearly 30 years.
Orthodox thinking (not logic) convinced us that having your legs straight or with bent knees and the feet on the ground was bad for the back. Hence, the crunch was developed. Elevating your knees does absolutely nothing to take the strain off your back. The flexion of the trunk is still doing the exact same movement as it would with the legs down; nothing gained.
Nowadays crunches are considered to be a thing of the past and the bridge is the new king along with balancing acts on unstable surface, the latter one being the biggest joke of all.
Sit Ups and its variations are not good for 3 important reasons:
The first is that the movement causes a great deal of compression on the discs of the spine. This pressure can easily exceed 650 lbs per disc. In some cases it can create irreparable damage and in others it can cause a major back ache. Some individuals feel nothing at first, but, after many years of doing the same thing over and over, something has got to give.
Secondly, this movement is not a movement you would find in everyday life or in sport. True, the 6 pack muscles are designed to flex, but, not in the position one would perform while doing crunch type exercises. I do not like to refer to this group of muscles as abs, rather, I would prefer to call them trunk muscles. This entails all muscles which flex, extend, rotate & stabilize.
Stabilization has become the new kid on the block and that is why the bridge exercise, taken from yoga, has become so popular. It is a great exercise, but, it limits its execution to only stabilization. Not to say this not a key factor in fitness and performance, but, one must realized this is only linear development and not multi functional. Balancing acts, on balls and discs to develop a strong trunk is nothing more than to sell memberships and fancy gadgets.
Thirdly, all the crunches in the world will never give you a 6 pack for 2 reasons; one, there is no such thing as spot reduction, the body just does not function that way and two; you lose excess weight through diet. If you want to shed unwanted pounds and show off your hard earn muscles you have got to eat right and exercise properly to metabolize energy needs.
In future articles I will present multi/compound exercises which work all aspects of the trunk in one exercise.
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