Your abdominal muscles are resistant to fatigue, according to the IDEA Health & Fitness Association, a membership organization for fitness and wellness professionals.
As part of your core muscles — the muscles in your hips, back, chest, and pelvic region — the abdominals are used constantly during regular daily activity. Your abs help you do things like get out of bed, sit up straight, and carry bags of groceries.
Harvard Health Publishing recommends training your core muscles, including the abs, two or three times per week. But it’s safe to train your core for 10 to 30 minutes daily.
You can challenge yourself by doing sit-ups and crunches on a decline bench, which positions your head below your legs, requiring more strength to pull yourself up.
To get the most out of your workout, you need to be informed. Here’s what to know.
Exercise Form
Both decline sit-ups and decline crunches are performed on a bench with your head lower than your hips and legs. The deeper the incline, the harder the exercise.
Set the bench at your desired angle, starting with just a slight decline if you are new to the exercises. Secure your legs against the pads, holding your body in place by hooking your feet under the pads.
Decline Crunch
For the crunch, cross your arms over your chest or place them behind your head, says the International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA).
Exhale and curl your head, shoulders, and upper back away from the bench, contracting your abs. Inhale and release back down for one full rep.
Decline Sit-Up
To do a full sit-up, start in the same position with your arms crossed over your chest or behind your head, says Trainwell, an online fitness platform.
Exhale and curl away from the bench all the way up, bringing your torso completely off the bench. Try to touch your elbows to your thighs.
Refrain from using momentum to throw your body forward. The movement should come from the abdominal muscles. Inhale and lower slowly down for one complete rep.
Target Muscles
Crunches and sit-ups mostly target the same muscles in your midsection. The primary mover in the decline crunch is the rectus abdominis, or the six-pack muscles, says the Athletic Insight Sports Psychology and Exercise Organization, an online fitness information hub.
The rectus abdominis runs from the bottom portion of your rib cage down to your pubic bone. Its job is to flex, or forward bend, the spine.
In the full sit-up, the target muscles also include the rectus abdominis, according to Inspire US, a fitness information hub. It also targets the transversus abdominis, the deepest ab muscle.
The transversus abdominis extends from your ribs to your pelvis and wraps around from front to back to provide postural support, explains Physiopedia.
Assisting Muscles
No one muscle acts alone in the body. Although decline sit-ups and crunches have a primary mover, they also have assisting muscles.
When you’re performing a decline crunch, your obliques — the muscles along the sides of your waist — act as support, Athletic Insight says, helping the rectus abdominis curl the spine.
In a sit-up, the assist comes from hip flexor muscles collectively called the iliopsoas, says ExRx.net, an online fitness resource.
The iliopsoas is actually a group of three muscles that can function together, according to Physiopedia: the iliacus, psoas major, and psoas minor. It runs from your lower spine down past your hip onto the femur.
The iliopsoas’s job is to help your hip rotate externally (hip flexion), and it ensures correct sitting and standing posture. It’s also crucial in walking and running.
Tips and Considerations
If your goal is to build a six-pack and define your abs, then the decline crunch is the better choice, research says.
However, core training should include flexion, extension, and rotation to build stabilization, Level Up Fitness and Training in Midland, Michigan says. Decline sit-ups aid in spinal stabilization, so you can include these as part of a full core training program.
If you’re new to core training, start with sessions two or three times per week. As you get stronger, you can increase the frequency, Harvard Health Publishing says.
If you’re a beginner, the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City suggests starting with two sets of 10 reps per exercise. When that feels easy, increase to 12 reps, then 15. Finally, increase to three sets of 15 reps.
Once that feels easy, you can periodically increase the angle of the bench to make each exercise more challenging.
Consult a certified trainer or a physical therapist to determine how many exercises per workout is a good starting point for you.
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