The Death of the Sit-Up

By Sean Holmes

-January 25th, 2016-

Allow me a second to brag (ok, it might be more than a second).

Back on October 8th, 2011 I published this article: Death of the Crunch

Well here it is January 2016 and I found an article in The Toronto Star about the Canadian Military and The Death of the Sit-up.

The Military is FINALLY moving away from using sit-ups as a test. FINALLY. After looking at further research (the same research from the same person, Dr. Stuart McGill, that I referenced back in 2011) they realized the sit up was more detrimental to your spine that it was beneficial to anything.

It basically just summarizes the exact things I said. Only more than 4 years later! (This doesn’t help with the jokes about the Canadian Military!)

It’s a very interesting read in why they no longer use this as a test (and why you shouldn’t either).

My favourite quote from the article:

McGill says every exercise is a tool to achieve a goal. “If (your goal) is to become faster, stronger, or if it’s to become injury-resilient and have less pain in life and make yourself generally fit to enjoy life, then the answer is don’t do sit -ups,” he says. Exercises such as planks, he notes, are safer for lower backs and better engage core muscles.

Tags: core stability, core training, injury prevention, injury reduction