Why aren't we doing sit-ups anymore?

Sit-ups were once a god. With the development of the times and the popularization of exercise science, many people no longer advocate sit-ups until now. The US military has even abolished the training unit for this training unit!

Today we will talk carefully: Why don’t we do sit-ups?

The reason is a bit complicated. We can discuss it from the aspects of training risks and training effects.

In terms of training risks, as the research on exercise science has become more and more thorough in understanding the core stability, we found that the lumbar spine is a body part that requires "stability" much higher than "mobility". What does this sentence mean?

The spine is a layered structure, and the surroundings are covered with nerves. In all the upright postures of humans, the lumbar spine carries the entire upper body. The weight also bears any external weight held on the hand, carried on the shoulder or on the back. We also know that when the body is slightly unbalanced during the movement, the lumbar spine may deform. Although the lumbar spine has a certain degree of mobility, once this degree of mobility is too high, it may oversqueeze the intervertebral disc and even damage the nerves. Therefore, "we hope that the lumbar spine should be kept in the safe range."

There are two necessary principles to protect the lumbar spine within the safe range during sit-ups:

　　First: It is not suitable to do too much, and second: It is not suitable to do too fast. That is to say, it may be safe to do three sit-ups at speeds similar to Tai Chi routines, but this is obviously not the method for most people to do sit-ups. Sit-ups usually take massive training, and Often it becomes a speed test within a limited time (such as a sit-up count count in one minute). In this process, the lumbar spine will bend repeatedly at high speed with movements, essentially squeezing the intervertebral disc repeatedly in various directions. As the muscles become more and more tired, the posture becomes more and more disorganized. The potential damage will slowly begin to emerge and will continue to accumulate. When the accumulated damage is too much and serious enough, various pains will begin to appear.

　　But because this is an accumulation process, many people do not feel different in the "early stage", and it will even be difficult to understand that physical injuries are accumulating. Usually after several months or several years, because they often do not inexplicably flash to the waist, twist to the waist, or even sleep a nap, they find that there are old injuries on the waist. Many athletes have similar experiences. 　　This remark always leads some people to jump out and say, "When I was a soldier, I jumped ten thousand times at a time, so that my abdominal muscles were bulletproof... Isn't living well yet..." Yes, there are indeed some heroes who can do a lot of bad exercises without being injured, but this may be a blessing caused by the shape of the spine, which does not mean that such examples can be used as evidence that sit ups are suitable for all human beings. Moreover, this process of twisting the lumbar spine over and overwhelmingly, even if it does not cause damage, reduces the stability of the lumbar spine. People with low lumbar spine stability also have a higher risk of injury when they exercise vigorously or carry weight outside the body. In other words, even if they are not injured during sit ups, they may be injured in other actions.

When the lumbar spine is very poor, even daily movements such as hugging a child, getting up from the sofa, sneezing vigorously, or wearing socks or tying shoelaces may suddenly have a back pain. Therefore, from the perspective of risk, sit-ups have greater risks!

You may ask, if someone is naturally immune to the risk of sit-ups, and it is okay to do more, then you can enjoy sit-ups as much as you want? This is to talk about the training effect.

　　From the training perspective, each training must have a clear purpose and effect, but the effect of sit-ups is not very convincing.

　　If you say sit-ups make you lose your lower abdomen, then your common sense of exercise needs to be strengthened. I will not waste time explaining why sit-ups are not solely based on sit-ups. It is too likely to be thinner.

　　It is more important to explain that some people would advocate that sit-ups can train muscle endurance, which seems to make sense. Indeed, sit-ups can train muscle endurance that repeatedly bent. But in fact, unless you want to participate in the World Bend Competition, most of the time, the abdominal muscles function in a "equal length contraction", that is, the abdominal muscles (or the entire core muscles) are mainly used to "comply with the diaphragm movement during the breathing process to help "stabilize" the trunk". In other words, the core muscles are used to "create stability" and "resist movements", rather than to "reduce stability" and "produce movements".

　　We have explained in other articles that humans are the very few vertebrates who stand up. In the vertical state, there is not a good bearing capacity. However, most of the time, humans support the lower body on the ground, and then the upper body fights the external weight. At this time, the poor lumbar spine becomes a force hub for up and down attacks. Only the protection of intraabdominal pressure can ensure the safety of the spine. At this time, if the core muscles cannot cooperate with breathing to provide "stable" functions, it may endanger the lumbar spine, causing the risk of force limitation or even injury.

　　So, to train a truly useful core function, the best way is to use the neutral lumbar spine posture, cooperate with the appropriate breathing method to tighten the core muscles, and then bear the external resistance or heavy weight.

　　If you are a beginner who never exercises, you may use plank support, side flat plate, supine bridge and other actions to Training in 10 to 60 seconds each time

　　But if you are a strong competitive athlete, you may have to carry 2 to 3 times the weight of your body, practice walking with weight, or carry 0.5 to 1 times the weight of your body in one hand to do unilateral lifting, or do various changes in the squat series and deadlift series with large weight.

　　In short, there is no sit-up in the menu of the strong core.

　The goal of muscle strength training is to stimulate the body's muscles, bones and nervous system by countering the external weight, so as to build a stronger body and higher body motility. Based on the excessive and unnecessary training risks for most people, as well as the core-based functions and sit-up movement patterns, it is okay, so we do not do any sit-ups.