Weighted sit-ups

Discussion in 'Health and Fitness' started by Cathain, Apr 21, 2008.

  1. Cathain

    Cathain Lily Lau Gar

    Are weighted sit-ups a good idea?
    The potential benefits seem obvious but I've heard that they can be bad for the lower back. Is it safer to just do decline sit-ups instead when i want to add more intensity to my normal sit-ups?
     
  2. narcsarge

    narcsarge Masticated Whey

    If you do weighted situps on an incline and don't allow your back and shoulders to touch you shouldn't risk injury. That being said, I much prefer weighted Ab Crunches while kneeling at a high cable pull down station. I use a rope handle and do my crunches w/ my hands on the sides of my neck.
     
  3. Athleng Nordic

    Athleng Nordic Sadly passed away. RIP. Supporter

    Weighted sit-ups are not bad in and of themselves, but you do need to work the back muscles as well. So if you're doing one side flip over and work the other side. All is in balance.
     
  4. Cathain

    Cathain Lily Lau Gar

    How would I go about working the back muscles that way?
    I can see how using the cable pull down, but with free weights just arch the back whilst holding the weights out in front?
     
  5. Yohan

    Yohan In the Spirit of Yohan Supporter

    I don't do any kind of isolated ab work during my weights. Deadlifts/powercleans (we just started those) tend to hit all of my core pretty hard. I also do some bus drivers as part of my lifts (I can't even find a description of that online), plus some medicine ball slams. I'm pretty confident about my core strength.

    Do deadlifts to work your back, glute ham raises and reverse hypers are also good.
     
  6. Yohan

    Yohan In the Spirit of Yohan Supporter

    Supermans would be good.
     
  7. Athleng Nordic

    Athleng Nordic Sadly passed away. RIP. Supporter

    As noted supermans are good, so are good mornings and back extensions.

    :google: He is your friend
     
  8. Cathain

    Cathain Lily Lau Gar

    Excellent, thanks for the advice folks :)
     
  9. Yohan

    Yohan In the Spirit of Yohan Supporter

  10. CosmicFish

    CosmicFish Aleprechaunist

    Just a tip from a personal anecdote. I've been training with the same philosophy - "I'll do deads and squats, I don't need direct ab work". Now, after two years, I have a lower back injury which flares up every time I squat or deadlift heavy. Turns out I have anterior pelvic tilt and the accompanying lordosis. Now it's arguable that I already had this to some extent, but the heavy deads would have certainly made it worse.

    It's worth mentioning why I didn't do ab work from the start. To be honest, it was mostly an ego thing. I wanted to distance myself from the skinny "abs and bicep" guys. I prided myself on the fact I was doing "the heavy lifts". Common sense should have told me that if you work your back, you should work your front too. After all, you don't work your biceps and not your triceps.

    Long story short, I've now incorporated ab work (amongst other measures) into my routine to help bring things back into alignment.

    Anyway, I'm not saying everyone who does deads only without ab work will develop problems. I doubt my posture was perfect when I started out. However, I'm throwing this into the thread as food for thought.
     
  11. Hiroji

    Hiroji laugh often, love much

    yeh, i see no reason to leave direct ab work out, its not like you would have to spend 30mins on them.
     
  12. Athleng Nordic

    Athleng Nordic Sadly passed away. RIP. Supporter

    As I noted before about balance, and Fishy gave a great anecdote, you have to keep it even. I learned this lesson with my chest and upper back.

    Direct abs and lower back work shouldn't take you more then about 10 to 15 minutes in your workout. There are many combo lifts and statics you can do, but the direct work is need to keep it healthy.

    Some things I find useful are to build them into the overall workout just to keep things movig and break up the routine a little. I'll hit a set of crunches between sets and then do a back extension between the next two. Keeps the blood moving and the sweat flowing. :)
     
  13. Yohan

    Yohan In the Spirit of Yohan Supporter

    What ab work are you doing?
     
  14. CosmicFish

    CosmicFish Aleprechaunist

    I did start off doing the Legendary Abs routine, since it came quite highly recommended by several posters on T-nation. It's pretty good, but it didn't seem like enough. I was deadlifting in the 140-150kg range for 25-30 reps at the time. Five minutes of bodyweight situps and assorted similar other exercises didn't seem like a reasonable counterbalance. Anyway, I've now signed up with the gym at work and I'm using their weighted crunch machine as well. I could have just done situps with a weight on my chest, but I've always found it awkward and fiddly.
     
  15. hl1978

    hl1978 Valued Member

    I prefer taking a medicine ball and putting it over my head while doing crunches.

    Doing weighted inclined reverse situps put way too much stress on my lower back.
     
  16. Yohan

    Yohan In the Spirit of Yohan Supporter

    Yeah we started doing something similar to the cable crunches, but with a resistance band on a pull up bar. We did v-situps, and some sprinter crunches. I think decline sit ups with weights sound like a solid option.
     
  17. Stuart H

    Stuart H On the Mandarin bandwagon

    Deadlifts, cleans, squats and overhead presses all involve the muscles of the abs and back to a great degree - if you're not doing them anyway, why the hell not? Do them, and if you need any assistance exercises for the abs and back, do Roman chair situps and reverse hyperextensions respectively.
     
  18. slipthejab

    slipthejab Hark, a vagrant! Supporter

    I find that doing sit ups where you end up sitting all the way tend to put a lot of stress on my lower back. While it's not ever given me problems I just avoid them. I tend to do more time on the crunch end of things... from standard crunches where I get the shoulder blades/upper back of the deck to side crunches where I get the shoulder/lats up off the deck. I find these to be pretty effective for conditioning the mid section.

    On top of those I do a lot of standing rotational movements either weighted or on a cable machine for some variety. Though they're not strictly abs... more overall core.

    I also do a fair bit of stuff like leg raises from the chin up bar... we've got a set of straps that you put your arms through up to the armpit basically and they're comfy for cranking out sets of leg raises and circular leg raises.

    Though come to think of it... I'm not entirely sure where the line between ab/core/hip flexors ends and begins. I need to do a bit of in depth reading.
     
  19. Su lin

    Su lin Gone away

    I had to stop doing v sit ups due to my lower back, they seem to be the thing that triggers the pain. I tend to do more crunches now than full sit ups and it seems to be working. Also I have just been introduced to the world of pain that is the side plank with crunch.OW! Doing loads of human sport cable machines in the gym which are definitely working for me.
    Also been trying to do the leg raises on the pull up bars in the gym.
    If I don't get killer stomach muscles soon there will be trouble :D Now just need to get rid of the flab that is hiding them :D
     
  20. TaeKwonDavid

    TaeKwonDavid Valued Member

    I find the best workout for my core muscles are the running squats and reverse squats. Leg raises are also a good option. If you're worried about damage to your back, one of the senior instructors in my TKD class taught me "skydiving," an exercise to strengthen the back. You lie on your front, extend your arms and legs, raise them, open them, close them, lower them. Repeat until knackered.
     

Share This Page