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I don't know if this is common knowledge or not, but the conventional sit up is not a very good exercise, and for a few reasons.

I know what you're thinking. How can they be bad? Why did the gym teacher make us do so many of them back in the day? Well, the answer is really quite simple, as nobody really ever questioned the old way of exercising the core (abs) of the body until a number of people ended up with back issues that prevented them from exercising.

And once the experts actually studied the sit up and its' effect on the body, a resounding NO was heard around the exercising world. Because what they found was both a potential for injury and some inefficiencies.

For instance, the abdominal crunch has replaced the sit up as the default exercise for strengthening and conditioning the core. But the range of motion while performing a crunch is reduced on both the top and bottom position of the range of motion, so that you contract the core muscles for the complete duration of your set. A standard sit up involved laying perfectly flat for the start position, and basically straight upright for the finish, and this guaranteed that you were not actually working the abdominals at the top and the bottom as the contraction was gone.

With the abdominal crunch, your start position is about 4 inches off the floor, and as soon as you lift your shoulders up a bit, you instantly feel the contraction of the abs. You then pull yourself up using your tummy muscles, to about a foot of being perfectly upright. You should still feel the contraction in your gut as you start to lower yourself down to your start position, 4 inches or so from the floor.

The other beautiful thing about the crunch is that it is not a ballistic exercise where you are banging your back, shoulders, or head against the floor or mat, possibly inviting a serious injury to derail your fitness goals. With the crunch, everything is smooth and fluid, and is a very safe exercise to perform either on a mat at the gym, or on the rug at home.

Another great exercise that you can also do at home or at the gym is the lying leg lift. This involves laying flat on the ground and placing your feet together. You then raise them slightly above the floor (4 inches), place your hands under your butt for stability, and you are in the start position. From there, you can perform the exercise one or two ways, or both. You would raise the feet just before they're perfectly straight up, and that would be your maximum up position, and

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