Do sit-ups without holding your head with your hands, right?

[Key Points]: Sit-ups are performed from lying flat on your back with your knees bent to sitting up. They mainly mobilize the muscles near the hip joint. The correct way to do sit-ups is to use the strength of the abdominal muscles, rather than the back, arms, or inertia.

Sit-ups are a compound movement involving the thoracic spine, lumbar spine, and hip joints. The starting position is with your hands behind your head and your elbows open outward. The serratus anterior muscle will shorten, pulling the lower angle of the scapula forward. In this position, the rectus abdominis will be stretched, and the resistance torque of the hip flexor muscles is the largest, making it difficult to start with force.

The first step of the movement is to contract the rectus abdominis to restore the hyperextended thoracic spine to its original state and provide a starting force for sit-ups; the second step is to contract the hip flexor muscles to pull the body up. Standard sit-ups have a good effect on the coordination of the abdominal and hip flexor muscles.

The correct way to do sit-ups:

1. Combining with other fitness methods to lose weight is more effective

Simply relying on sit-ups can only achieve local fitness effects, because sit-ups directly target the abdominal muscle groups. Long-term exercise may strengthen the abdominal muscles, but other parts of the body, such as the thighs and buttocks, will get less exercise. Therefore, the first point to note is to effectively combine sit-ups with other fitness methods to achieve the effect of weight loss.

2. The action is in place without deformation

Many people's bodies will unnaturally deviate in a certain direction when doing sit-ups. This is wrong, as it will cause uneven training of the abdominal muscles and thus change your body shape. You should try to control the direction of your sit-ups and sit-downs, not deviate from the straight line, and slow down the speed to exercise the control ability of your abdominal muscles. It is best to feel the movement of your abdominal muscles when you get up.

3. The pace is moderate but not too fast

The correct way to do it is to cross your arms in front of your chest, and control your abdomen when sitting up. Or you can increase the difficulty by placing your hands behind your head and spreading your elbows as far as possible to achieve the desired exercise effect.

4. Don’t hold your head with your hands

Many people think that sit-ups must be done with the elbows touching the knees. This posture can easily cause the latissimus dorsi muscles to use force to pull the arms to provide inertia, which will reduce the strength of the abdominal muscles. This kind of leverage is more common especially when you are tired at the end of the work.

Source: 39 Health Network www.39.net

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