Ordinary Sit Ups and The Effect

Doing sit-ups is a quick way to get stronger abdominal muscles. However, they must be done properly to avoid any injury to your spine and the neck and head muscles. In addition, sit-ups are about using the abdominal region (the abdominals). Therefore, close attention must be paid to ensuring that you are not compensating by using other parts of your body to perform sit-ups, as this will diminish the effectiveness of the sit-up and may cause injury to your body. It is not as harsh as it sounds - always, always focus on the abs and you are most of the way there.

Great care and excellent technique are required to strengthen the abdominal muscles with sit-ups. To be effective, sit-ups must pull the torso upward from a lying position toward the knees using only the abdominal group. Often, however, other, more powerful, muscles (those that flex the legs and hips) do much of the work. This is especially true with straight-leg sit-ups.

Bending the knees during sit-ups helps neutralize the action of the hip flexors and makes the abdominal muscles work more. Even so, the abdominal group tends to be involved only in the initial phase of the sit-up, after which the hip flexors take over. In addition, doing sit-ups rapidly and with momentum, knees bent or not, does not work the abdominal group very much. That's why raising slowly only part way works the abdominal muscles best.

This is perhaps the most popular myth I have to deal with. By performing sit-ups or "crunches", you are helping to strengthen and firm up the rectus abdominus muscles, more commonly known as the "six-pack". But crunches will do nothing to reduce the amount of fat you have on your tummy. Abdominal fat is there because of excessive calorie consumption, so the only way to get rid of it is to burn off the calories by following a balanced diet and performing high-intensity exercise such as running, cycling, aerobics and swimming.

No expert her but according to ALL professionals there is absolutely no way to get Abs of definition by sit-up or crunches alone. Cardio MUST be involved and as I have found out not just the same type of cardio workout, but a mix to keep the body off-balance. One study put moves in three types of workouts A) Mix of Cario+strength but NO ab workouts at all, B) Ab specific and Strength training with NO cardio and C )just Cadio.

The best results came from the "A" group, weird huh, we all have Abs but if covered by a layer of fat no amount of crunches or sit-ups will bring them out.