Are sit-ups bad for you? And what to replace them with?

Repeated spinal flexion is risky for most people.
Add to that the fact your abs are used to stabilise the spine in most sporting scenarios and you realise that sit ups are ot worth the time or effort.

For a long time I beleived that heavy lifts, particularly front squats would work my abs sufficiently (I beleived the same with arms but that's for a other time, equally bogus though) now I would consider my abs a weak link in my lifting chain.

When selecting a trunk exercise I look for the following:

Is my spine unsupported? Lying on the floor stabilises the spine, thus reducing the benefit.
Does my spine remain in an neutral position?
Does it have increased loading potential?

Therefore my favourites are front squat lock out holds, paused front squats, the ab wheel, TRX jackknifes and the good ol plank.

Obviously if your sport involves you lying on your back performing flexion (ie BJJ) things change a little...

 

Deadlifts and squats with broomstick overhead. Great for working the core. Other than that it's largely down to diet. Others have mentioned two good options... hanging leg raises as long as you can get the hips moving and not just using hip flexors to raise the legs... and ab roll outs... but these take some careful thinking because it's all to easy to wreck your mid and lower back with even a single ovezealous movement.

 

i remember having this exact conversation with you the other day!

 

what's wrong with just planking for two or three minutes every day?

also, front squat lockouts

 

One of the things I've found to be true for myself as far as abdominal exercises and progression goes is that if you can't do a 6" leg raise without having your hands under your butt and keeping your lower back pressed to the floor, you don't have the abdominal strength/stability to progress to exercises like reverse crunches on the floor.


When I started doing reverse crunches/ leg raises on a bench at a 30 degree angle it was killing my lower back. I stopped for a while and worked on the above posted and when I went back to doing the same exercise the control and muscles involved were entirely different. It 'felt' safer and it 'felt' like it was working my abdominals a lot more. A lot of people do those kinds of movements explosively too, which I take being an "overzealous movement" as you stated.

Simon posted some great stuff about doing planks. Doing the 'alternate foot/hand' raise is absolute torture the first time you do it.

 

You have to be cautious when doing ab work. Your lower back can really take a beating and most people do a ton of ab work and then completely neglect the lower back. Having strong abs is great, but a strong lower back will keep you out of a lot of pain as you get older.

I always like hanging knee/leg raises though to add to what others might have suggested.

 

There are ways to make pushups work the abs harder, like wearing a loaded pack on the back. Even bicep curls can be made to work abs-just keep the core engaged (as if pulling the bellybutton to the spine).

The simple "v-up" works for those with no equipment. Just lay on your back with arms stretched fully above the head. Then reach the feet and hands toward the ceiling and touch them together at the halfway point.

If you have a pullup bar or one of the bars that fit over a door way, just lift yourself up to the top of a pullup and bring the knees to the chest.

I am of the opinion that chest/ab exercises should be balanced with back exercises too, FWIW.

 

The risk doesn't really lie in a strength imbalance, we should have pretty strong lower backs if we take part in any kind of strength/serrious sport training.

The main cause for concern is the risks associated with repeated spinal flexion.
Every time the lumbar flexes thee are a whole host of worrying things happening to it, so any movment with a spinal flexion focus is worth spending some time working on the pro's and cons particularly if it is performed laying in the floor or sitting in a machine, we are looking to build SPINE STABILITY not just get a pump in our abs. That's what core strength is, not how many plates we can do sit ups with.

Ie sit ups, very poor ab developer, with a high risk on lower back, no spine stability challenge. Risk to reward is way off

An wheel: for me this makes my abs crazy sore, there is a low risk when done with proper form, and has a huge spine stabilising element

With all the deads and low bar squats i do I want my ab work to be safe for my lower back, therefore i stick to the movements I stated earlier.

@mitch, ever looked at ying and yang planks? Or some kind of leg raise/revrse crunch?

 

Standing Ab wheel rollout still kills my front delts, probably why there are so many videos with people doing them from their knees. I've been trying a progression from hitting the extended position against a wall. I tried the same thing only a little off the ground with the TRX and it was easier on the day but took my delts 3 days to recover. Nick Timmowhatsit? suggests a Swiss ball Pike > Rollout is the best combined ab exercise!

 

I tried these this morning (along with normal, single arm raises, single leg raises), from both a plank on the forearms, and one on the hands. Both types were bloomin' difficult in terms of balance, strength and stability and left my abs feeling well worked.

It's been another one of those moments where I have a massive realisation that something was missing from my work outs (or not being done properly) :cry:

Thank you to all the posters in this thread, it has been incredibly informative and useful, and from now on, crunches are being replaced by dead bugs (including the wall push variants) and all the plank variations (being held for increasing durations)

I am also considering obtaining an exercise ball and resistance bands to try out some of the exercises in the links Frodo posted (thanks for those too!)
Presumably if I get those things, I would have the challenge of finding somewhere to anchor the bands for doing the Pallof Press and other rotational thingies... Any tips?

Cheers,
Harry

 

There's not many women that could write that sentence.

 

Captain's Chair AKA knee raise station

 

Fantastic thread. Though I could do with a copy of Posterior Tilt for Dummies. Help?

 

Imagine you were doing the deed and got stuck in the 'forward' part of the motion,
(That's how I tend to explain it to male clients lol)

Also map inspired workout about to start Abs yoga and gymnastics.

EDIT, just realised how edgy the second part sounded, I'm genuinely doing gymnastics and yoga for an hour, like head stands and stretching, nothing else....

 

Socially awkward and helpful. Well played, sir.

 

I have no idea what he means. I'm married.

 

So, after a second go at doing plank variations (and, I think, doing a little better than before, maybe I'm fresher or something) I noticed a bit of unevenness in my shoulders.

Nothing painful during or after the exercises so far, but definitely something is a bit imbalanced and I've suffered some neck and shoulder pain before (it went away on its own last time - typical bloke level of treatment!)

Yes, if the pain does come back I'll be going to my GP as soon as possible for (most likely) a physio referral.

Anyhoo, I asked my osteopath friend to have a poke about, and she thinks I have a small amount of instability (accompanied by some clicking and clunking) in my right shoulder, so I did some googlefu and found that "scapula winging" is a common accompaniment to instability, shoulder and neck pain, and bad posture (like me) too.

I then found a few workout tips like scap push ups that develop the muscles which holds the scapula to the thorax. So far so good (or at least, understandable)

I then stumbled upon this guy's YouTube channel: [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk8k1D5Py1o&feature=youtube_gdata_player"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk8k1D5Py1o&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/ame] who is of the opinion that, in a lot of cases, it isn't lack of mobility or strength in the muscles that's causing the issue, but lack of control.

Anyway, he suggests a number of progressive methods of restoring control and a few things struck a chord with me as being interesting:

1. Good shoulder posture shouldn't be thought of as "down and back", but the scapula should be "down and around".
2. Instead of rolling the shoulders back and lifting the sternum (for someone with thoracic kyphosis, like me), the mantra should be "long neck, wide shoulders". This is something I hear in yoga a lot and probably didn't really understand before.
3. One of the early exercises for teaching scapula control (the prone thoracic extension) looks a lot like Swan pose from yoga (starting from on your hands and knees, point your toes and sit back on to your feet, arms should be straight in front of you, and pulling the floor gently back towards your knees).
4. One of the intermediate exercises are plank variations! (Does this count as independent corroboration that you guys DO come out with sound advice, not that I ever doubted it?).

Anyway, I'll be carefully integrating some of these in to my practice, and thinking "neck long, wide shoulders" rather than "down and back" for posture, keeping an eye on scapula winging during planks and push ups, and going to the doctor if any pains arise.

I am not a medical expert by a long shot, and I'm not suggesting that what I do is right for anyone else, or even for me (except the seeking medical help for pains part, hence why I'm trying then out carefully), but I found the video, and the couple of others on his channel that I've watched so far, pretty interesting.

So, what do you think about the ideas in the video for general shoulder stability/alignment and posture? Do you do any of the movements he showed (or similar)?

It might be something that's been raised before, but it seems to me that shoulder stability could be seen as an extension of core stability... Shoulders are the new (upper) core!