Comments on: Sit-ups Suck, Don’t Work Your Abs

By: mel

mel — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 06:47:30 +0000

Great article! I had wasted a lot of time doing sit-ups.

By: Darrin

Darrin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:25:57 +0000

Hi Dan – nope. By “definition”, I assume you mean fat loss in order to see all the surrounding musculature. Situps are not going to do that for you. I’m not sure what specifically you are going for, but my guess is that lunges (there are many variations) are probably going to work your upper thigh and butt area best.

Also, I think there’s nearly unanimity in the fitness world that situps do work the hip flexors BUT put undue stress on your back. I’ll be doing a series on abs in the coming weeks so watch for that.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:43:41 +0000

will doing sit ups or any movements that work the hip flexors aid in getting better definition at the hip?

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:57:33 +0000

Richard- Great question. The answer is that none of the ab exercises are particularly helpful for burning your unwanted stomach fat. Sean made the comment above that there is no spot reduction of fat. Basically that means that you can’t lose the fat in just your stomach without losing fat all over your body. You can’t take it off of just one place.

Ab exercises do increase the lean muscle of the abdomen, and that muscle does consume more calories which means you end up with less of a gut… but that’s the same for any muscle you are working. Squats build more muscle overall and therefore burn more fat in the long run. Situps build muscle on your stomach (which you’ll need to get a six pack), but don’t necessarily do more than other lifts to take the fat off of it so that you can see the six pack.

By: Richard

Richard — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 08:01:26 +0000

Great article, Jason. Your write ups are always detailed, yet 100% understandable!

Usually when I do situps/crunches, I would do like 3 sets and with each set I would do a different variation, like either crunches or legs in the air crunches etc etc. But which ab exercises do help burn that unwanted stomach fat?

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:02:02 +0000

Sean- That’s true, spot reduction doesn’t work. There’s no way that you can remove the fat from your stomach only by doing ab workouts. And weighted crunches are a great way to go… there are many way to do these as well.

By: Sean

Sean — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:49:10 +0000

Great article! It’s nice to see an article debunk the myth of situps! It never seizes to amaze me how many poor souls do thousands of situps in the gym thinking they can tone up their abs that way, but little do they now there is no such thing as spot reduction and set after set of situps isn’t going to cut it. Me personally I like weighted crunches.