What Do Sit-Ups Do?

Video Transcript

"Hi this is Aaron Hale at Fitness for Life here in Wilmington, North Carolina here to tell you a little bit about what the sit up does for the body. The sit up is a very basic exercise, just as basic as the push up or the squat or the lunge. But just like all those other exercises, there is a reason why even though they are very basic movements and they have lasted as long as they have is because there are very little exercises outside of those that work that targeted muscle group as well as they do. For the abs, the sit up really helps to focus on the entire what we call the rectus abdominis which run right here on the inside. Also our transverse abdominis and our obliques. When we are forced to put ourself in that position, we have got our hands behind our head and we are sitting up towards our knees, our abs are having to pull our entire body weight in towards our knees so when we are having to come all the way down to the mat and all the way back up we are really having to engage our entire abdominal column to make sure that we can get our upper body into our knees. So what that does, the abs or our core are what helps support our spine. So by doing sit ups we help to strengthen our spine which is actually going to help to provide more stability for our lower back, help to provide a little bit more help for our lower back and hopefully if we can continue to work on our abdominal core strength we won't have as many back or lower back issues as we begin the aging process. That's been how or what sit ups do here form Aaron Hale at Fitness for Life in Wilmington, North Carolina."