I remember doing them when I was little, but at a certain point I came to think of the sit-up as being obsolete. It was replace by the crunch, which was apparently better for your back and neck, and also worked your abdominals harder. This was further confirmed when I discovered I had a degenerative L5S1 disc and went to physical therapy, where they instructed me to always do crunches on a swiss ball. And I’ve done that for the last four years
It’s not that the results haven’t been fine, but they’ve certainly been nothing spectacular. It seems that at a certain point you plateau, and can go no further. Which is why I was surprised when I came across this instructable for getting six-pack abs. I’ve read a lot, and talked to trainers, and even had a friend in WoW who was a body builder, and none of them ever recommended just doing sit-ups. It was always some combination of obscure exercises done in obscure positions that seemed to return similar results to the swiss ball crunch. So I figured I’d give it a shot. Two weeks later and I’m pretty happy with the results.
I started out doing 50 a day, and felt burn after about 15. I’m doing 60 now, and I don’t feel burn until at least 30. Measuring improvement is so easy with sit-ups. There was really no way to quantify or see what level I was at with crunches, because there are about 100 minutely different variables when it comes to position and method on the ball, so I’d constantly get different readings. But a sit-up is a sit-up. There’s only one way to do it, and you’re always sure you’re doing it right. I just have to be careful not to upset my back at all. I haven’t had a problem with it in years and I’d like to keep it that way.
January 21, 2008, 8:42pm
