I've played around with the idea of doing X number of situps everday, increasing the amount every week. It's more of an experiment than anything, but I figured I'd do it for a year and see what happened.

I've heard good and bad things about situps...with the bad mainly revolving around back issues.

I'm a 23 year old male and I don't have any back problems (yet), but would doing this hurt me?

Or possibly even worse, would this do absolutely nothing for me? I'm not using this to replace my workout at all. Just something to do in addition.

If you've got belly fat, you'll look like you're putting on weight (I speak from experience).

Max

Reaallly? Because it builds muscle but doesn't really get rid of fat?

The last thing I thought it'd do is actually add weight (or the appearance of it).

If you want to lose the fat, you need to get your body to use the stored fat, not neccessarilly build up the muscle.

If you want to build up the muscle, you don't want to do hundreds of situps everyday...1) your muscles need to heal to grow and get stronger, 2) think about how many reps you do to build our bicep, 6-15 maybe. Doing the hundreds will get your heart rate up like cardio excer.

Find an ab excercise that you can only do up to 15 reps. That will build that muscle (and help in burning fat), but you're not going to spot train the abs into skinny-ness.

Back pain during situps is (usually) caused by a weak lower back, the muscles in the lower back should be as strong as the abs. Most people do lots of situps thinking it will create a six pack but ignore their lower back, that is what causes problems.

I have to second what Nathan said. Building up a stable core through exercise and weight training can tighten up these mucles, help burn calories, improve your posture, aid you in carrying your weight more easily, and will provide a strong foundation for additional exercise training.

But core stability work won't make your tummy disppear. And it's always important to use proper form and to work contrary muscle groups--the abs and the back, the biceps and the triceps--to avoid overtraining one group.

I agree with Nathan and Ron on this one. Think of your abs like any other muscle group (cause that's what they are). You wouldn't work your chest every day - or at least you shouldn't. What you want to do is work your abs hard, and then give them time to recover. It's the recovery process that builds muscle, not the working out process. Working out tears the muscle down. If you work your abs hard, you should give them at least a few days to recover. Personally, I work every muscle group once a week, but 2-3 times a week is about the most you should ever really work a muscle group. If you work a muscle group before its had time to recover, you'll suffer from "overtraining" and actually make yourself weaker in the long run.

As far as "getting a 6-pack" - that is all about what you eat. You can build massively huge abs, but if you never burn the fat on top of them, you'll never see them. Building muscle doesn't burn the fat right on top of the muscle. You need to lower your body fat percentage to see your abs. Also worth noting, it is impossible to burn just the fat on top of your abs - this myth is called "spot reducing". You will burn fat over all your body. Once your bodyfat % reaches ~10% or so, you'll see those abs.

Try and eat more often (6 meals a day), and shoot for a balance of lean proteins, complex carbs, and healthy fats.

Good luck!

-Brian

We all have similar goals to you Josh, you keep comin' back and let us know where you're at, we'll keep you updated, and someday we can all get together and have a sixpack party.

Side Note: Does anybody have a way to estimate what your weight should be to be around 10% for the six pack to show through? I'm 6'6" and I went from 300 + to about 248 (still nothin', a little at the upper abs, but that's where I lose first) and I'm not quite sure how to estimate my ideal weight (let's say 6 pack weight). Anyone? Anyone? (And I'm a big guy, not skinny, i have some muscle and a BMI calculator says for me to be in "healthy range" i shoudl be like 215, it seems low becasue i ahve muscle mass, and another 30 + lbs. to lose seems high to me)

I'm not sure the 10% number works across the board, as different people store fat preferentially in different parts of their body. For some people, the body fat % could probably be significantly higher and the six-pack might still show through; for others (sadly, I think I'm in this group), it would have to be much less than 10% before enough fat around the belly disappears for the ripples to show.

I know that my love handles are the LAST place my fat goes away (one time in HS i was about 215 and i didn't have a six pack, if I strength trained like I do know, then, I would have, so damn, got 30 lbs. to go, new goal, haha)

About bodyfat % and calculating how much weight to lose to reach a certain bodyfat %:

What you would want to do is get an accurate measurement of your bodyfat as it is right now. Now, really the only way to get a 100% accurate measurement is to weigh yourself underwater and figure it that way. There are scales that measure bodyfat %, but they are not that accurate IMO. Calipers is a good method, but the person taking the measurements needs to know what they're doing (for example, how to measure the skin folds, etc). I think many people are given false readings and estimates of bodyfat %.

Anyway, once you get an accurate measurement, here is what you'd do.

Say you're 200 lbs at 20% bodyfat (to make the numbers easy). 200 x 20%(0.2) = 40 lbs. That means you've got 40 lbs of fat on you and 160 lbs of muscle.

Now, assuming you lose only fat and not any muscle (which is very hard to do when you're cutting down to 10% bodyfat), you want to know at what weight is 160 lbs 90% of the total weight. So, take 160 / 90% (0.9) and you get 177.77, or ~178. At 178 lbs, if you had 160 lbs of muscle and 18 lbs of fat, your bodyfat % would be 10.11%.

You would know that you need to lose ~22 to 23 pounds, assuming that every pound you lose is fat, and none of it is muscle.

Now, realistically, some of the weight you will lose will be muscle, especially once your bodyfat % gets down below 12 or 13%, so our fictional 200 lb person should probably try and get down to about 170-175, making every effort to conserve what muscle mass he has.

It's important to lose the weight slowly at the rate of 1-2 lbs per week. Any weight loss that is faster than this will almost definately result in muscle loss. The exception would be a very overweight person, who could expect to lose 3+ pounds per week until they got to a "normal" weight range.

All those replies are right on the money. One thing worth noting as well is that you have mentioned situps. These are great in moderation, (as a teen I did these in boxing and martial arts like I was Rocky!) but they are not the best exercise for your hips.
Your hip flexor muscles get worked excessively in this exercise, this will eventually cause posture problems. I still personally love to use it now and then, but crunches and many swiss ball movements are better for overall core conditioning.

All the best!

I do agree ,crunches are better then situps, besides If you so the situps right you cant do that many.