ADVENT CALENDAR OF CORE: DAY 11

ADVENT CALENDAR OF CORE: DAY 11

Sit up and get your core into gear!

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It was push ups yesterday and today, another classic… the sit up! Dreaded by many, loved by few, great for your core either way. Before you get going take a minute to read through the set and note that we aren’t jamming our feet under something heavy and using our hip flexors to pull our body up. These sit ups are totally self-sufficient, activating our hamstrings to keep our feet on the ground whist we use our abdominals to get us sitting up proud.

Sit ups

The sit up is another of those classic exercise that you may have learnt at school. While the old school way of performing sit ups is to hook or feet under something that doesn’t move, today we are going to perform sit ups completely on our own. This will get us targeting the correct abdominal muscles rather than our hip flexors.

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 this position, we are going to use our abdominals then bring our body upwards towards our knees.

Today, we are going to introduce three levels of Sit ups. In later days we will introduce two harder levels so work at getting these right today. Check out the levels below.

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

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. Use the reduced workload to ensure you perform quality sit ups and make sure not to put a weight on your feet. This is all about our core not our hips. Remember, however well you go, it’s much better to do five good reps that ten bad ones. 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 1 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 2 Sit Up x 10
5Laying Superman - 2 second hold51015
6Rest1:30 min1 min1 min
7Sit upLevel 1 Sit Up x 4Level 2 Sit Up x 7Level 3 Sit Up x 10
8Laying Superman - 2 second hold51015

We’d always love to know how you are doing so check in with us on the Wild Runners Facebook wall, #CalendarOfCore or send us an email.

It would be great to see you at a Wild Runners session sometime soon – we love new faces. It often only takes a few simple pointers to see significant improvement.

See you tomorrow, Wild Runners.