Why You Shouldn’t Do Sit-Ups

In the last years, you are more and more advised to do crunches instead of sit-ups. Here is why exactly you shouldn’t do sit-ups, especially if you are training for a six-pack.

Your Stomach Muscles

Those muscles that make up what people call the “six-pack” or “washboard abs”, are the topmost of a whole group that resides in this area. Beneath them are many more, collectively called the “hip flexors”.

The difference now between a crunch and a sit-up is that the crunch works those visible muscles, while when you do a sit-up, most of the work comes from those deeper muscles:

Shouldn’t You Train Your Hip Flexors?

It of course isn’t per se wrong to train your hip flexors, as they have important tasks in stabilizing your lower back and moving the legs. But if your goal is training your abs and you do sit-ups, you are simply doing the wrong exercise.

If I now convinced you about crunches, here is how to do them correctly!

Picture courtesy of Sylvia McFadden.