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How To Do The Perfect Sit-Up

iNeon

iNeon

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This is my first guide in a series of guides to educate you guys on certain aspects of life i find myself well informed on :)

The primary function of a sit-up is to tone and tighten up your abdominal muscles.
By doing so, you achieve a flatter stomach and if persisted along with the right diet,
as well as plenty of aerobic exercise you can achieve what's known as a six-pack.​


  • The Opening Position
    The most important aspect is to make sure your head and neck muscles are completely relaxed with your hands behind your ears to provide support to your head.
    Your neck should be completely straight
    Feet should be flat on the floor with your shoulders asymmetrical flat on the floor.
    Your lower back should be almost flat on the floor but slightly raised due to the natural curve, this should be maintained as it is natural.
    The back should not be arched too much or pressed against the floor, this creates tension on the spine when it should feel relaxed.
    Your chin should be away from your chest, this restricts your breathing otherwise.    .


Perfect opening position, demonstrated by a professional.
​



  • The Movement
    The objective of the sit up is to bring the sternum (The bone in the middle of your chest) and your pelvic cavity (where your man or lady bits are) close together.

    Start at about 180 degrees tensing your stomach muscles and bring the body up to around 30 degrees.

    Exhale when bringing your head upwards.

    Inhale when bring your head back towards the ground.
    This is by far the most comfortable way of breathing.



  • Frequency
    There are two types of frequency depending on what you wish to achieve:
    To gain Muscle Mass I'd suggest : 3 Sets of 15 reps to start
    To tone your Abdominals I'd suggest: 2 Sets of 20 reps to start.

    You should include a 30 second rest in between completing sets before continuing.
    The amount of sit-ups you perform really does depend on how fit you are as an individual.



  • Common Mistakes Made
    Sit-Ups should not be performed with straight legs, this puts tension on your hip flexors reducing the emphasis on the abdominals.

    If your abdominals start to ache, i'd stop and reasess your technique.

    Your contraction when performing should always be at a 30 degree angle, beyond 30 and other muscles start to come into play and doing the work for you, reducing the exercise's effect on your abs.



  • Variations
    These are adaptions to your technique and should only be used once you have been working out on your abdominals for a persistant 3-4 weeks.

    Make the sit up work your muscles more by increasing duration, remember that doing an excercise slowly but in a controlled manner is the best way to increase muscle toning.

    Work your lateral muscles (the side muscles) twist your waist slightly to either the left or right for five consecutive sit-ups, and then do the same thing on the other side.

A lot of work went into this guide, i'd appreciate your constructive criticism and any praise.
Thank you for reading :)​

 
I like the topic and where you are going with this guide iNeon, but I think there are also a few things that you could improve on.


Firstly I would like to say that you did a very nice job with the coloring of your guide. First of all it's in very nice colors which are easy on the eyes. Also I noticed that you have somewhat highlighted out some of the more important parts of the guide which adds a nice touch. Your grammar also seems to look up to par, which is always a good thing in guide writing.


Now as for your actual guide I think that it could have been expanded a bit more. It's a nice simple guide on how to do a good basic sit up, but maybe you could of gone into a little more detail on different aspects of the topic to make it a better overall guide. I also noticed that you put one picture at the beginning, and then kind of stopped for the rest of the guide. Maybe you can put a few more pictures in there so the readers can correspond more easily with the guide.


Finally I noticed that some of your steps seem to be a bit jumbled in the beginning of the guide. An example would be here:
The objective of the sit up is to bring the sternum (The bone in the middle of your chest) and your pelvic cavity (where your man or lady bits are) close together.
Start at about 180 degrees tensing your stomach muscles and bring the body up to around 30 degrees.
Exhale when bringing your head upwards.
Inhale when bring your head back towards the ground.
This is by far the most comfortable way of breathing.
Click to expand...
If you would just separate some of these steps with either spacing or bullets of some type, then it would make it much easier for the readers to follow and understand.


Hope this helps! :D
 
Nice guide, was very clear, brief and straight to the point, and was also very easy to read.

Just a few questions,


When you talked about Frequency, does your body weight play a role in this?

Do you HAVE to follow the amount of repeats and sets you gave us, or do we keep increasing it as we improve?

Thanks,
Pigbow.
 
pigbow said:
When you talked about Frequency, does your body weight play a role in this?
Click to expand...

Muscle to weight ratio is normally the same for most people, if you are really struggling theres no harm in dropping the number of reps until you feel more comfortable.

pigbow said:
Do you HAVE to follow the amount of repeats and sets you gave us, or do we keep increasing it as we improve?
Click to expand...

You should gradually increase your reps and sets as you feel improvement yourself, a good way to keep a record of your improvement is to do a max-rep excercise once a week, this means doing as many sit-ups as you can without rest.
As you see improvement you can then add to the number of repetitions.

If theres anything else you need help with please don't hesitate to PM me :)
 
Great guide, could have done with some examples of other abdominal excersises.
 
Good guide, might want to add more pictures in or change your headings to a much larger font. Other then that Fantastic!
 
I was a powerlifter... I worked out among bodybuilders...

I was also extremely interested in nutrition and how the body works...

I could revise your guide to get rid of all those myths and incorrect information in there...

I won't point it out in public to avoid ignorant flamers. But when you're back from being banned pm me.
 
Nice guide, well written, also nice work on the colouring :P Too bad your banned :o I would get tips off you.
 
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