Prison Workout: Sit-Ups
Prison Workout - Sit-Ups
Sit-Ups are the quintessential abdominal exercise. Doing a few sets in the morning or evening is fast and relatively painless :) Ab muscles heal quickly so you can work them almost every day or at the end of each prison workout. However, do not to rely on sit-ups alone. Keep your abdominal muscles guessing by including a mixture of crunches, reverse crunches and bicycle crunches as part of your ab routines.
Disclaimer: While ab exercises can help you build up your stomach muscles, they burn very little (if any) fat. Too much fat over the tummy region will hide the washboard stomach you are creating. Eating a healthy diet and taking frequent aerobic exercise (such as walking, biking or swimming) can help reveal this "six pack" effect.
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How to Do Sit-Ups
Lie on the ground with your knees bent. Place your hands loosely at the sides or fold your arms across your chest. Raise your torso off the ground and up to your knees with a gentle rounding of your back. Hold for a brief moment at the top and then slowly lower yourself back down. I try to keep tension in my abs during the entire movement. Beginners, you may find it helpful to extend your arms out as your rise.
What Does it Work?
Sit-ups work the rectus abdominis a.k.a. your abs. To a lesser degree this exercise also involves the external obliques and the hip flexors (quadriceps, rectus femoris and tensor fascia lata). To put more emphasis on the obliques, twist your torso to one side as your rise.
Tip: For goodness sake do not purchase any of the ab craptrations that are hawked on TV infomercials. Donate the $$ I just saved you to the Boys an Girls Clubs of America. The only piece of equipment you need to do sit-ups is a floor.
Variations
I prefer to anchor my feet. Guys you may find this particularly helpful. Also, if you have access to a slant bench try sit-ups on an incline (feet higher) for an intense burn.