Sit up · Bodyweight
How to do more sit ups
How to do a sit up without wrecking your neck, the ladder from crunches to a decline, how to train them, and the 7-day sit up chart to follow with friends.
The movement
How to do one properly.
Every rep the same shape, so the numbers mean the same thing on day thirty as on day one.
- 1
On your back, knees bent, feet flat and about hip width apart.
- 2
Hands crossed on your chest or fingertips at your temples. Never pulling on your neck.
- 3
Breathe out and curl up one piece of spine at a time until your chest meets your knees.
- 4
Lower the same way, slowly, until your shoulder blades touch the floor.
- 5
Keep your chin a fist's width off your chest the whole way.
The way up
How to do more sit ups
Rung 1
Crunch
Shoulder blades off the floor and back down. Learn to curl, not to heave.
Rung 2
Sit up
All the way up, all the way down, feet unanchored if you can.
Rung 3
Slow negative
Up normally, down over four seconds. Fewer reps, far more work.
Rung 4
Weighted
A plate held on your chest. Add weight before you add reps past thirty.
Rung 5
Decline
Feet higher than your head on a bench. The last rung for most people.
Sit ups are endurance work: sets of fifteen to twenty-five, three or four sets, four days a week. Add two reps per set each week.
The two cheats are the neck and the swing. If your chin tucks hard or you throw your arms to get up, drop to a rung where every rep is quiet and controlled, and climb from there.
How it is counted
On the board, however it got there.
No watch counts sit up, so nobody's does. Say it out loud in the app or type it in, and it lands the same as a synced session.
Worth 0.4 points per rep in the app, so a challenge can weigh it against anything else you count.
Questions
Asked about sit ups
Sit ups or crunches?
Either counts here; a sit up is the whole way up. Pick one and keep it the same, so this week's numbers mean something against last week's.
My neck hurts when I do them.
Hands on your chest, chin a fist off your chest, and curl rather than pull. If that does not fix it, stay on crunches and slow negatives for a few weeks; the neck is usually doing work the stomach should be doing.
Does it count from my watch?
No watch counts sit up, so nobody's does. Say it out loud in the app or type it in, and it lands the same as a synced session.
Is there a chart to follow?
Yes. The 7-day sit up challenge is written for exactly this: a number for every day, a rest when it is earned, and a way to run it with friends in the app.
Is it free?
Yes. The athlete app is free: logging, challenges and every guide on this site. Coaches pay for their workspace; the people they coach do not.
Other exercises
Everything else we count.
Push up
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Pull up
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Squat
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Plank
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Dip
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Burpees
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Lunges
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Jumping jacks
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Skipping
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Extensions
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Battle ropes
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Running
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Cycling
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Swimming
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Rowing
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Steps
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Hiking
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Football
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Basketball
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Tennis
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Dancing
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Yoga
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Do more sit ups.
Let someone see it.
Get the app, log what you did or let your watch send it, and hand your friends the code.