Six Pack Abs Exercise Or Back Breaker

For years now, sit ups have gotten a bad rap by many fitness "experts" who tout that sit ups are damaging to your spine. Where did this strong opinion come from? The way the sit up has been ostracized by the fitness community, you would suspect that hundreds of thousands of six pack abs seekers have destroyed their backs while performing this "dangerous" exercise! Fortunately, that's not the case, not even close.

The "sit-ups are unsafe" chant that can be heard echoing throughout fitness centers all over the world was actually born in the lab. Studies have found that sit-ups stress the spine more than the crunch does. And? Taking a nap will stress the spine even less than crunched do. Is napping a better ab exercise than crunches? You can see how the stress argument is seriously flawed. Every exercise that you perform creates some stress on the body. It is that stress that encourages our body to adapt and get stronger. This is the very nature of exercise.

Let's investigate the sit up a little further. The reason why the critics say sit-ups stress the spine more than crunches is because of the involvement of the hip flexors during sit ups. They state that this hip flexor activation leads to a compressive force in the spine, and therefore, should be avoided. Is this a gross overreaction, or do they have a point?

Well considering that athletes and fitness enthusiasts have been performing sit ups safely for decades, it should be glaringly obvious that this "fear" is unsubstantiated in the real world. In fact, after being in the fitness industry for over 16 years, I can say with confidence that I have NEVER seen a single back injury result from a set of sit ups.

I still hear many trainers say to me, "Ok, I'm convinced that sit-ups are not so dangerous now, but since crunches work the abs just as well, why even bother with sit-ups? Let's see why they feel this way and why they can miss out on some advantages of sit-up variations.

It is true that during a sit-up, your abs are only directly responsible for the bottom portion of the movement. Once the spine is flexed (when you have finished the "crunch" part of the sit up), the hip flexors predominately take over to finish the movement. What is often overlooked is that even though the hip flexors provide most of the movement during top range of a sit up, the abs are still working hard isometrically (contracting without producing movement). This contraction does contribute to a positive abdominal training effect.

Something else to consider is that the sit-up burns more calories than crunches do. Working through a larger range of motion and integrating other muscles besides the abs, makes this possible. Remember, training your abs directly is only half the equation to having a six pack. The other part to this is reducing body fat to unveil your stomach. Burning additional calories will help contribute to this.

Although I don't believe that the sit up is the best ab exercise, I do prescribe sit ups, from time to time, to any client who I feel they are appropriate for. For example, you must have a solid foundation of abdominal strength and no chronic back problems. If you fit the criteria and use proper form, you will have no problems with this exercise.

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