Posts Tagged ‘sit ups’

Remember back in high school gym class when you had to perform sit-ups to build 6 pack abs and demonstrate your fitness level?

Well, turns out that all that effort may have been for naught, as more research studies and anecdotal evidence suggest that sit-ups do little, if anything, to strengthen abdominal muscles – let alone help you build 6 pack abs.

So which exercises can bring you closer to the ideal “six-pack”?

Why Sit-ups Suck: Real Exercises that Build 6 Pack Abs

Dr. Stuart McGill, professor of spine biomechanics at the University of Waterloo, argues that sit-ups can do serious damage to your back (read “The Painful Lumbar Spine” in the January 2010 IDEA Fitness Journal).

In the October 2009 edition of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, a study from Ohio’s Youngstown State University concluded that strength gains, body fat reduction, and waist size loss were non-existent for both its non sit-up and sit-up control groups.

Entitled “Traditional Exercises Do Not Have a Significant Impact on Abdominal Peak Force in Healthy Young Adults”, authors Ken Learman, Jennifer Pinter, and Renee Rogers suggest that low-intensity, low resistance abdominal training should be dropped in favor of exercises that promote the necessary repetition failure, i.e. muscle fatigue, required to build real strength. Read the rest of this entry »