How to Perform a Sit Up

Video Transcript

"Proper exercise form is important to decrease the risk of any injury when you are doing any exercise. This is Alice Monsaert with tips on how to do a sit up. A sit up is really a full body movement. Hands go behind the head or across the chest and you lift all the way up, curving up the spine or going into spinal flexion. This is not the most effective exercise for the abdominals because it involves a lot of the hip flexor so we perform more of a crunch position which is just moving the rib cage to the hip and it relaxes the hip flexor a little bit and puts more of the focus on the rectos abdominos which is the large muscle group running all the way down from the sternum all the way to the pubic bone. So to perform the crunch place your hands over your chest if you are a beginner, tuck your hands and your chin slightly and just curl. Try not to use the neck or the head but again decrease the area between the rib cage and the hip bone. Even a crunch uses a little bit of a hip flexor so you might want to try a small ball behind your back which is going to take the hip flexor into a more relaxed position. When I'm in this position my hip flexor definitely is not as contracted as it was when I was laying flat down in a supine position. Place the ball behind your back, hands can be across the chest or hands behind the head and you can roll back a little further over the ball so you can activate more muscle fibers of the rectos abdominos in your sit up or your curl up or your crunch. Make sure that you exhale when you are lifting. If this is too difficult for you, you can actually start with your hands underneath your thighs to assist you in your curl up position. So again proper form is very important to prevent risk of injuries. This is Alice Monsaert, hope you have great day."