WASHBOARD abs have long been associated with peak fitness.
But while sit ups once ruled as the ultimate way to tone those abs and gain a tighter waistline, more recently health and fitness experts have been shunning the crunch.
GettySit ups might not be the ab workout of your dreams after all[/caption]
They’re leaving sit ups out of workouts and replacing them with all new exercises that they claim are much more effective.
So what’s changed? Why has the sit up fallen out of favour and what has come to replace it?
As a personal trainer and fitness expert Jenny Francis-Townson has been avoiding sit ups for years and says it all comes down to the fact they simply aren’t that effective.
She says: “Having a strong core is fundamental to overall health and fitness, so I’m all about encouraging people to work to strengthen the abs.
“Not only does a strong core often help people achieve their aesthetic goals, it also helps them avoid injury, relieves back pain and helps reduce body fat around those vital organs – a huge improver of overall health.
“Getting a ‘six pack’ relies on you having strong abs, but you also have to reduce your body fat for abs to become visible, so combining a healthy exercise regime with a healthy diet is key.
“The truth is, I never advise clients to do sit ups.
“When it comes to planning a workout regime to improve your core strength there are lots of amazing exercises you can do both in the gym and at home to achieve toned tummy muscles, and these are not sit ups.”
Here are the three reasons Jenny doesn’t do sit ups to get abs…
1. Crunches are tough on your back
When you perform a sit up, it pushes your curved spine against the floor and encourages you to use your hip flexor muscles (the muscles that link your thighs to lower back).
Most of us have tight hip flexor muscles because we spend so much time sitting down.
When these muscles are tight and we perform a sit up, they can pull on the lower spine, creating pressure and lower back pain.
Sit ups can also cause us to round our back as we ‘strain’ to get ourselves from the floor to a seated position, and this too can put unnecessary pressure on our backs.
Instead of toning those lovely core muscles, sit ups can instead leave us suffering aches and pains.
2. If you don’t do them right they don’t do much
There is no point huffing and puffing your way through 20 sit ups only to see no real results from them.
Unfortunately, the sit up can be a very easy exercise to ‘cheat’ and so many people make a sit up easier without meaning to.
This is simply because repeating sit ups over and over with perfect form is hard, so your body will naturally find ways of making it easier.
Common cheats include: Pulling your head and neck up with your hands, allowing your spine to curve and come off the floor, allowing your body to fall back down to the floor quickly and with no control, not bending your knees fully.
These cheats put strain on other areas of the body and not the core muscles, meaning the abs just aren’t getting the workout you are hoping for.
3. Other exercises simply work better
Yes, if you perform sit ups with the perfect form your core muscles will get a workout, but the truth is, there are a whole lot of alternative exercises that are much, much more effective at strengthening your core muscles.
So why waste time with a less effective exercise? Movements in the ‘plank’ position are a great example of this.
The plank position, which involves you supporting your body weight with your hands and feet while the rest of your body stays in a straight line like a plank, recruits a much bigger range of muscles on the front, sides and back of the tummy, while sit-ups use only a few muscles.
The more muscles you use while performing an exercise, the more ‘toned’ the tummy area will be and the more energy (calories) you will use up while doing it.
Sit-ups strengthen just a few muscle groups but dynamic exercises strengthen your entire set of core muscles, making them much more effective at getting you those abs.
TWO MOVES TO A TONED TUMMY
So, if sit ups are not the key to rock solid abs, what are these alternative wonder moves we should be doing instead?
Jenny says: “There are lots of great exercises for strengthening your abs and they are always compound exercises.
“This simply means that they are multi joint moments that require us to use multiple muscles to perform them.
“Compound exercises are the most effective workout movement anyone can do and almost always require complete use of the core.
“For the best, most effective core strength workout I recommend focusing on compound movements that have strong use of the abs.”
Perform 30 seconds on each exercise and take a 30 second rest. Aim to complete each exercise five times:
1. Low plank mountain climbers
Come onto the floor and rest on your forearms. Push into your toes to bring your body into a straight line, with your tummy off the floor.
From here, lift your left foot off the floor, bring your left knee toward your right elbow, keeping your body in a straight line as you do.
Return your foot back to the start position then repeat the movement with the right knee.
2. Side plank pulse
Come onto the floor and rest your left forearm on the floor underneath your shoulder and bring your left foot onto its side.
Push your body up off the floor so it is in a side plank position.
From here, slowly lower your left hip down towards the floor, then back up to the start position.
Repeat the whole set on one side, and swap to your right side for set number two.
Jenny’s top tip for abs:
“Don’t rush. We quite think that working ‘hard’ in a workout means working ‘fast’, but that simply isn’t true – especially when it comes to building your abs.
“Forcing yourself to slow down as you perform core exercises means forcing your muscles to contract for longer, helping them become stronger and tighter in the process.”