Sit ups and crunches represent traditional exercises used for training the core muscles and flattening the abdomen. The number of injuries or the inefficiency of the exercises nevertheless indicate that many people don’t know how to do sit ups correctly. Here are a few tips about how to do sit ups at the gym or at home without any risk and with great effects.
First of all, you need to lie on the floor or on a flat, hard surface and make sure there is no distraction nearby. If the position is comfortable you can keep the feet flat on the floor and bend the knees. Keep the distance between the feet similar to that between the hips. You may experience a bit of soreness when you rest on the back because the muscles relax and you eliminate the tension. Now, let’s continue with how to do the sit ups as such.
It is important to pay attention to the position of the hands. The hands with the fingers laced should cushion the head. This is a good form of neck protection, because the neck muscle should have no implication in the moves. Don’t pull your neck when you lift. Learning how to do sit ups with the hands by the sides of the body or straight up in the air is a bit more difficult, and not at all a good choice for the early training stages. You may try this when you are more advanced in the training routine.
The stomach muscles should be pulled toward the spine in support of a lifting move. You should lift just the shoulder blades off the ground, for no more than eight inches in the direction of your knees. Make the rise and the fall back very slow. This rise-lower move represents the basis for the sit ups, and the speed of the performance influences the results. When done correctly, the benefits of such exercises become more than obvious. Now that you know how to do sit ups, let’s see how you can improve them.
The sit ups should not be performed at the same difficulty level all the time. Periodically, you need to change the number of reps so that the difficulty of the exercise stimulates a further muscle development. You can alternate sit ups with crunches or make a combination of twisting moves and sit ups. From beginner to advanced levels, the possibilities are endless.
