Training Your Abdominals – Part 2: Mastering & Improving Your Sit-ups

Sit-ups are probably the most commonly performed exercise in the gym, and one of the worst executed by exercisers – especially if you’re exercising in the comfort of your own home gym. For such a popular exercise, you very rarely see it done in its purest form i.e. on the floor without any equipment. You will almost always see someone performing sit ups on a decline board, or on a stability ball.

Often a medicine ball is used, sometimes a weight disc to add more resistance. There is nothing wrong with using these tools in principle, but like anything else, the more parts there are, the more capacity there is for things to go wrong.

Back to Basics

Get the Feel of How a Sit Up Works and How it Works the Abdominal Muscles

Get the Feel of How a Sit Up Works and How it Works the Abdominal Muscles

Before you go back to the board or the ball, re-acquaint yourself with how a sit up works. Lie on your back with yourfeet flat on the deck, about 12 inches from you backside, knees bent pointing up to the ceiling. Now, put your hands on your thighs and gently curl your torso so that your hands, staying in contact with your legs, move up toward your knees. That is the basic movement – simple eh? Feel the way the work is being done and the load is being borne by your abdominal muscles. Not by hands behind your head, not by your lower back. When you return back to the lying position, pause a second and then start the movement again, but instigate it from your abdominal muscles, do not make the mistake of bouncing off your lower back or shoulders to create the momentum to sit back up.

The aim is to keep a fairly constant, albeit variable load on your abdominal muscles. If you sit too far up to the point of being vertical, there is no longer any load on your abs. If you lie back down completely, again, you have stopped the exercise, and more dangerously, you run the risk of hyper-extending your back and jerking it back when you re-initiate the movement. Keep your chin close to your chest and keep it in one position to prevent the “nodding dog” or “head banging” effect of jerking your head forward to create momentum to sit up.

Keep the sit up simple, and eliminate as many moving parts as possible in your body, and you will perform a tight movement that emphasizes the body part you are trying to train, i.e. your abs. Keep the movement steady and under control and concentrate on contracting your abdominals and nothing else – not your neck, not your lower back, and not your hands or arms pulling you up or creating momentum – just your abs.

Now, if you can master this movement, and more importantly commit the feeling to memory, you have the basics in place to move onto other crunch and trunk curl exercise, as the same principles apply whether you are on a board or on a ball (although there is greater scope for a greater range of movement on the ball). Remember what you are aiming for – abdominal load and contraction, and equally importantly, remember what to avoid – lower back strain, and disco dancing with your hands and head to create momentum. Remember these principles and you will perform a movement that will bring maximum benefit to your core, and equally importantly, reduce the chance of injury to your lower back and neck.

In my next blog ‘Training Your Abdominals – Part 3′, I’ll talk about using the stability ball, the decline board and a couple of other ab workout toys as you learn how to build a killer ab workout routine into your fitness program.