Is It Really Worth Doing 500 Or 1000 Sit-Ups Every Day?

It is a common belief that if you want to develop a rippling six-pack, all you need to do is to do hundreds of sit-ups every day.

However this is a wrong assumption to make because even if you do 500 or 1000 sit-ups every day for several months, you won’t necessarily have anything to show for it at the end of it all.

That’s because it is simply impossible to have an impressive six-pack if you have too much body fat covering your abs. Unless you are doing lots of cardio workouts to reduce your body fat percentage, your abs will never be fully visible, no matter how many crunches or sit-ups you do.

So this is one thing to bear in mind. Another important point is that doing 500 sit-ups or more every day could potentially cause some neck and back problems in the long-run.

The sit-up is quite a basic exercise but is still one that needs to be performed with proper form and technique if you want to avoid getting any back or neck pain.

If you are doing hundreds of sit-ups at a time, you may well find yourself rounding your back near the end of your routine, or putting too much pressure on your neck if you like to put your hands behind your head and pull yourself upwards, which can easily lead to problems.

You can also put too much pressure on your tailbone if you are doing lots of sit-ups on a flat surface, which will often result in a lot of pain and discomfort.

It should also be pointed out that doing lots of sit-ups will primarily tone up the upper and middle abdominal muscles. It will not really work the lower abs or the obliques, which is another reason why it is largely a waste of time to do hundreds of sit-ups every day.

If you really want to do sit-ups, you would be better off doing 20-30 crunches on an abdominal incline bench at the gym, holding on to a weight plate for extra resistance. This will give you equally good results in much less time, and to target the other abs muscles, you can do leg and knee raises, bicycle exercises, plank exercises and other similar exercises.

The point is that doing 500 or 1000 sit-ups every day can easily lead to back and neck pain, and will only tone your middle and upper abdominal muscles (and only then if you have a low body fat percentage to begin with).

To get a fully-formed six-pack, you need to get your body fat down first and foremost, and then hit your abdominal muscles from all angles to give them some definition and make them stand out, and you will not do this with sit-ups alone.