Posted: 11/28/2006 1:31:02 AM EDT
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Hey all I got into a rather retarded discussion at work last night, and figured Id ask for yalls input... If youve got a bit of a gut on you and youre doing situps, is it more effective to suck in the gut as youre sitting up or just let it lay there and jiggle? or does it not really matter one way or the other? |
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what your fat does while you do situps is irrelevant. You can't tense up fat, so it just lays there anyway. Clenching your abs when doing situps/crunches gives a little extra muscle contraction and is a good idea IMO. It's the equivalent of giving and extra "squeeze" at the top of a bicep curl. If someone has an explanation that this is not in fact a good idea, I'd like to hear it (I'm by no means an expert on kinesiology). |
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Pre-tensing your abs while doing situps is very important because it helps deactivate you hip flexors which most people use to do situps. Most peoples hip flexors are not very flexible to begin with and doing a lot of sit ups with poor form just makes them shorter and less flexible. This can lead to over arched lower backs, pain and injury. Janda situps are good as they seek to completely deactivate the hip flexors. |
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Something I found on Janda situps www.vewdo.com/tutorial_vewdo_balance_board_janda_sit-ups.html |
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hmm..never even heard of janda situps until now. guess I'll look into it some more. from the replies here I can actually see my coworkers point of view a bit more clearly than he put it. I was under the impression that clenching in the abs whilst doing sit ups was more beneficial than not doing so, while apparently he was thinking I was referring to actual fat when doing them. basically one of us was talking about the abs, while the other was talking about fat. turns out we were arguing while we were both on the same page... Anyhow thanks for your help guys. (yeah were al a bit retarded at work) |