The Good News About Sit-Ups: Don’t Do Them!
Two of the most common abs exercises are
the Straight-Legged Sit-Up, performed lying
on your back with the feet held to the floor,
and the Roman Chair Sit-Up, which uses a
special bench found in most gyms (Fig. 1).
At first glance, these seem to target the abs.
After all, both movements center around the
waist and cause the abdominal muscles to
“burn.” But a well-targeted exercise is one in
which the target muscle is the main muscle
causing the motion. That isn’t the case with
either of these exercises.
Fig. 1 Roman Chair Sit-Ups
Fact is, the abdominals have a much narrower range of motion than either of these types of Sit-Ups requires. Fully two-thirds of the Straight-Legged Sit-Up is the work of muscles other than the abs. The Roman Chair Sit-Up is even worse: it has almost no direct ab involvement—the abs merely stabilize the body while other muscles are used to raise and lower the torso.
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Here’s an important rule of thumb: When
you’re lying on your back with your legs
extended, your abs have the capacity to raise
your shoulders about 30 degrees off the floor,
and no further. Any exercise that involves
movement beyond that is working muscles
other than the abs.
Is it bad to involve other muscles? In this
case, yes.
Those “other muscles” are called the psoas
muscles. They run from the front of your
upper leg, through the pelvis, attaching to the
lower six vertebrae of your spine (Fig. 2).
When they contract, they pull your upper
body toward your legs—just as your abs do.
But unlike the abs, the psoas muscles have a
huge range: they can flex your body forward
all the way from a full back bend until your
chest touches your knees.
Fig. 2 The psoas
“…Any
movement you
can do by the
hundreds is
not an
efficient
muscle
conditioning
exercise!”
The two psoas muscles work best when your
legs are extended and/or your feet are held—
as they are in both these exercises. When you
do Sit-Ups or Roman Chair Sit-Ups, the
psoas compete with your abs for the first
third of the movement, and then they take
over entirely for the rest. As a result, only a
small amount of the work you’re doing is
going into conditioning your abs.
Such inefficiency makes it very hard to
overload the abs. Some athletes find they
must do several hundred Sit-Ups before they
feel a burn. (As a rule, any movement you
can do by the hundreds is not an efficient
muscle conditioning exercise!)
Worse, though, is the risk of injury
from psoas-dominated movements.
With each contraction, the psoas tug
at their attachment on the lower
spine. That tug doesn’t do much harm
as long as the abs remain strong
enough to prevent your back from
arching. But, unfortunately, even if
you’re in great shape, the abs tire
fairly quickly. Eventually, your back
begins to arch, causing the vertebrae
around the psoas attachment to grind
together. After a few years of this,
you may be stuck with chronic lower
back pain as a result of disk
degeneration.
Psoas muscle contraction
tugs on lower vertebrae,
causing them to grind
together.
Fortunately, there are safer and more effective exercises. You’ll learn these, and the optimum way to combine them, as you start to build
Six Pack Abs!
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