ADVENT CALENDAR OF CORE: DAY 14

Sit up – the next level!

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Day 11 saw us doing Sit Ups and from all reports, you found these hard. Great! To sit up without wedging your feet under something or someone is definitely challenging. And today, for levels two and three, we are going to up the ante. Use yesterday’s break to your advantage and let’s smash out some good Sit Ups in combo with the Laying Superman. The Sit Up instructions for all levels, now including level four, is below.

Sit Ups

To start, lay on your back with your knees bent at 45 degrees and your feet flat on the floor. All the way through the exercise, keep your feet on the floor and your legs in this position. From here, bring your body upwards towards your knees. Don’t hook your feet under anything, this will target your hip flexors and we want to target the abdominal muscles. The variations in difficulty are outlined below. In coming days, we will introduce Level 5 so put a good effort into getting your technique right today to set yourself up for the future.

Level 1

Hold your arms out straight towards your knees. Sit up until your hands pass your knees and then return back to your laying position. See the photos:

SitUpLevel1_Down_WildRunners

SitUpLevel1_WildRunners

Level 2

Hold your arms out straight towards your knees. Sit up until your elbows pass your knees and then return back to your laying position. See the photos:

SitUpLevel1_Down_WildRunners

SitUpLevel2_WildRunners

Level 3

Cross your arms in front of you as in the picture. Sit up until your arms push against your thighs before returning back to the laying position. See the photos:

SitUpLevel2_down_WildRunners

SitUpLevel3_WildRunners

Level 4

Cross your arms in front of you with your hand on your shoulders. Sit up until your arms push against your thighs before returning back to the laying position. This is only slightly harder than Level 3 so give it a really good go. See the photos:

SitUpLevel4_Down_WildRunners SitUpLevel4_WildRunners

The Exercise Set:

In today’s set, we will perform Sit Ups and the Laying Superman to ensure you strengthen both sides of the body and don’t wind up curled in one direction. Sit ups are hard so use the reduced workload to ensure you perform quality sit ups and make sure not to put a weight on your feet. If you find the target level is too difficult and you cannot complete the set successfully, drop down a Sit Up level while still performing the same reps. See how far you can push and stop if you feel pain.

StepInstructionLevel 1Level 2Level 3
1Sit upLevel 1 Sit Up x 4Level 1 Sit Up x 7Level 2 Sit Up x 10
2Laying Superman - 2 second hold51015
3Rest1:30 min1 min1 min
4Sit upLevel 1 Sit Up x 4Level 2 Sit Up x 7Level 3 Sit Up x 10
5Laying Superman - 2 second hold51015
6Rest1:30 min1 min1 min
7Sit upLevel 1 Sit Up x 4Level 3 Sit Up x 7Level 4 Sit Up x 10
8Laying Superman - 2 second hold51015

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See you tomorrow, Wild Runners.