To Situp or Not to Situp!

darksidefitness · 2025-11-07T15:04:37Z

To Situp or Not to Situp! By Rickey Dale Crain Every television station network has, at one time or another had an infomercial on an abdominal gadget. This constitutes in most people’s minds what abdominal work is all about. Most people in or out of the gym have virtually no idea how to put together an abdominal workout. Their training usually consists of buying a product on television and doing it a few times for a few weeks and then expecting to look like a 24-year old male supermodel. NOT! In other words, we throw a few sets of this and that together and expect it to work or we do a few sets of sit ups and leg raises a couple of times a week before, during, or after a workout and PRESTO super abdominal muscles are expected. And by the time we are 25 or 30 years old we already have the pork and pooch of a 50 or 60 year old. We can do better than that, though. It is time we change the attitude and the mindset. For years I prided myself as having good or great abdominal muscles, especially for a power lifter. First you need a goal and then you need a plan. It is no different than if I wanted to bench 300 pounds by the end of the year. I need to have a goal of a 6 pack and it can be accomplished, with a plan. I'll show you a few of the better abdominal exercises I have used over the years. First we ask, why do we NEED abdominal training? As an athlete or Sunday afternoon quarterback it never hurts to be strong in that midsection. It prevents injuries of all kinds and will always help you train heavier than you might otherwise be able to as well as safer. The second seems to be the most obvious and that’s to look good and the women (wives and girlfriends) love them; I never saw a guy that didn’t like some abdominal muscles showing on his wife or girlfriend, either. Most people who power lift, Olympic lift, body build, train for sport specific strength are after an abdominal six-pack. In sport specific training, they are a must in contributing to your sports performance. It is always true that "a strong midsection is needed to support, protect, and give explosive strength and force throughout the body. Sports specific abdominal training is superior over nonspecific abdominal training but we will not go into that at the moment. We will deal with abdominal work that should enhance your performance in all sports and most especially the look of the midsection. Injury prevention is that other added value in doing consistent and heavy abdominal work. The exact role of the abdominal muscles and other trunk stabilizers has BEEN KNOWN AMONG POWERLIFTERS FOR 20-30 YEARS, but it has never seemed to fully sink in or be comprehended by most athletes, until recently. Having done thousands of reps a week, of different types of abdominal work since the early 60’s, both with and without weights, I have developed a lot of different types of exercises that do work. Even Bill Starr, in his 1976 classic book, The Strongest Shall Survive, wrote that the abdominal muscles "…can be strengthened in a wide variety of ways. Sit ups, crunches of all types, leg raises, and trunk rotation movements all involve the abdominal muscles to different degrees." Bill Pearl's 1986 classic Keys to the Inner Universe lists and graphically illustrates over 100 abdominal and trunk exercises! Despite all this information, there seems to be a gap in the knowledge (or usage and admittance of such) and the actual practice of them. Most individuals do only one or two different types of abdominal work. Be smart and pick a number of different kinds to strengthen the midsection from all angles and in all areas for maximum protection and power. The question I am always asked is “how many times a week should I do them?” Different goals require different answers. The frequency for a person interested in minute changes in looks and strength will be less than one who is really serious about strength gains, injury prevention and looks. Weighted abdominal work, like any other type of weight training will require some rest between sessions during the week; abdominal work with high reps can be done daily or even multiple times during the day, as muscle endurance training requires less recovery than strength training stomach work. If your primary concern is injury prevention and strength training, I would do weighted and non-weighted abdominal work 3-4 times a week after your heavy workouts. On the other days you can throw in non-weighted high rep ab work. Let’s look at a few routines. Remember that abdominal workouts are as numerous as the grains of sand on the beach. The only limits are you and your imagination. WORKOUT 1 A good basic non-weighted abdominal routine involves 4 different exercises done in a superset like fashion. First, a crunch type sit up with feet firmly locked in place on a sit up board or something similar, hands folded across the chest and doing a motion of up and down, but not all the way up or all the way down. Second, a standing twist motion is...

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darksidefitness

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Topic starter 07/11/2025 10:04 pm

dedication!

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deathdodger

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07/11/2025 10:28 pm

nice advice thanks

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goatfishtwo

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07/11/2025 10:46 pm

Nice article, DarkSide. I used to love doing abs, but, I have not trained them in a long, long time. Honestly, they look as good as they did when I used to do 3-4 ab specific workouts a week. I am convinced that if you are doing heavy weight, complex movement exercises (deads, squats, barbell lunges etc) there is no need to target train your abs. Also, maintain a relatively low BF to see the results of your hard work.

^^ This

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