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Sit ups

letthegoodtimesrollletthegoodtimesroll
in General Charlton
No good for you according to a piece in this morning’s Times that I was speed reading on the tube. Do nothing for your stomach muscles and can cause damage to your spine...correct me if I’ve read it wrong. Luckily most of us here on CL will have trusted our instincts anyway and not done any sit ups.
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Comments

  • ForeverAddicktedForeverAddickted
    Damn!!... Why cant it be about push up!!... Cant do them but can do a sit up
  • iainmentiainment
    AFKABartram said:

    I kind of get this. Old Skool sit ups put a fair of strain on the lower back and I’m not sure are correctly attacking stomach muscles. Different type of crunches seem much better focused and less impact on spine. Not that I know jack about this, as evidence shows!!

    Press Ups. I suffer from weak joints / bones and tried this a couple of months ago and was mortified that I could only manage 3!!!

    Gonna set myself a mission to see how long it will take me to get to doing 10

    hundredpushups.com

    A site dedicated to push ups with associated sites including 200situps.com
  • SuedeAdidasSuedeAdidas
    Amen to that brother Bob
  • SuedeAdidasSuedeAdidas
    Then progress to lay downs for the more experienced
  • Todds_right_hookTodds_right_hook
    AFKABartram said:

    I kind of get this. Old Skool sit ups put a fair of strain on the lower back and I’m not sure are correctly attacking stomach muscles. Different type of crunches seem much better focused and less impact on spine. Not that I know jack about this, as evidence shows!!

    Press Ups. I suffer from weak joints / bones and tried this a couple of months ago and was mortified that I could only manage 3!!!

    Gonna set myself a mission to see how long it will take me to get to doing 10

    Add one a day. I did and I’m now up to 5!!
  • i_b_b_o_r_gi_b_b_o_r_g
    I do one sit up every morning without fail
  • CarterCarter
    My back is in pretty shabby shape, when I was younger part of our warm up circuit at rugby involved loads of sit ups and from the first one I did to the last one I did my back would pop just below the middle of my spine, didn't hurt just made a pretty unpleasant noise.

    Now if I do one whilst I weigh more every year the popping noise is horrible and it shakes right through my body

    So I do the right thing and swerve sit ups!
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  • LincsaddickLincsaddick
    a little bit of easy yoga, a 10-20 minute brisk walk every day and 15 mins every other day repetitive exercise with light (1.5-3 kg) weights will keep most parts of the body in trim .. see James Haskell or Joe Wicks's excellent books on diet and exercise .. just getting in the habit and doing it is the hardest part .. sit and press ups especially done when you're cold and a bit overweight are a great way to hurt your back
  • ricky_ottoricky_otto
    This won’t impact @daveMehmet. The weight he is carrying would result in a broken spine if he did one sit up.
  • kentaddickkentaddick
    sit ups are shit, loads of other better ab workouts that hit all areas of your core.
  • AddicksAddictAddicksAddict
    It's been known for quite some time that sit-ups aren't good for your back. If you want to do that kind of exercise, you need to have your back off the floor and, keeping your back straight, use your stomach muscles to pull your whole torso forward and back by small amounts, pivoting at the hips.
  • shine166shine166
    completed em mate
  • addick05addick05
    i_b_b_o_r_g said:

    I do one sit up every morning without fail

    I do lots of sit downs... does that count?

  • SageSage
    edited November 2018
    The piece from The Times is completely true. Having done a sports science degree, it winds me up the lack of knowledge from people in professional sports or industries.

    Sit ups are very bad for the lower back and lumbar spine, and as correctly pointed out by @AFKABartram abdominal crunches are far better and more effective. Sit ups can cause pelvic problems and eventually weaken the stability structures and muscles around the lower back if repeated over and over again.

    In fact, believe it or not, we actually don’t need all these 6-pack abs that people go on about. They do nothing for us. Core stability is key but having abs doesn’t mean you have core strength.

    The same applies to hamstring stretches, they’re so poorly performed that you don’t work the hamstrings, you only are stretching the sciatic nerve and I will leave you to decide how good that is for the body. There is a correct way of performing the stretch that not many people know and instead work the wrong thing and cause themselves damage.

    So there you have it people, don’t do sit ups, they’re more harm than good.
  • HarryHutchensHarryHutchens
    They may or may not be bad for your back - that depends on how you do them. But what's for sure is that they don't reduce your belly fat nor do they do anything for your postural muscles. For 99.9% of the population they are a waste of time. If you have already stripped off your belly fat via diet and exercise in general then some weighted sit ups or similar, done to ensure overload at a low number of reps, might give you some ab definition but that's it.

    (I've been a Personal Trainer since 1997)
  • eaststandmikeeaststandmike
    kentaddick said:

    sit ups are shit, loads of other better ab workouts that hit all areas of your core.

    This 100%
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  • bobmunrobobmunro
    ozaddick said:

    I had a physical examination by a stunningly gorgeous 20 something blonde bombshell yesterday for a gym membership. I was asked to do as many push ups as I could and by fuck I smashed out 27 of em simply because she stood an inch from right in front of me. That was al the motivation I needs to keep pushing back up! Sit ups hurt my lower back but if she stood in the same spot for those I’d still be going.

    Was she touching her toes at the time?
  • YTS1978YTS1978
    Greenie said:

    Sit downs are the way forward.

    Siddaaaarn!
  • thewolfboythewolfboy
    Surprised by this...I have been doing about 35 sit-ups and 50 press-ups most mornings for the past five years and have not needed to see an osteopath. I thought this was good for core stability!
  • rinarina
    blimey, are the Times rehashing old articles. not doing sit ups has been the advice for at least a decade, probably more
  • letthegoodtimesrollletthegoodtimesroll
    rina said:

    blimey, are the Times rehashing old articles. not doing sit ups has been the advice for at least a decade, probably more

    Something is only old news if it’s been discussed on CL first...
  • MuttleyCAFCMuttleyCAFC
    I am doing a sit up and holding my position on the sofa!
  • BlackheathenBlackheathen
    http://fit450.com/HTML/5BX_Intro.html

    The Canadian RAF introduced a plan in the 1950s for empoyees' physical fitness. It starts off absurdly easy doing push-ups with knees on the ground for example and after a few months doing them with just one arm. Needless to say I never got beyond the early stages. A benefit though was that it only took up 10 minutes a day and there was a seperate course for women.
  • Dazzler21Dazzler21
    Far better ab exercises out there, however they only put undue pressure on your spine if you're not training your lower back also.
  • AFKABartramAFKABartram
    AFKABartram said:



    Press Ups. I suffer from weak joints / bones and tried this a couple of months ago and was mortified that I could only manage 3!!!

    Gonna set myself a mission to see how long it will take me to get to doing 10

    2 weeks :-)

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