An abdominal exercise where you lie flat on your back and lift your entire torso up to a sitting position, then lower back down. It engages core muscles along with hip flexors.
From 'sit' (to be in seated position) + 'up' (upward movement). One of the oldest recorded exercises, used in military training for centuries and standardized as a fitness test in the early 1900s.
Sit-ups were the gold standard of core training for decades until sports scientists discovered they put tremendous stress on the spine - up to 730 pounds of compression force! This led to their decline in favor of safer alternatives like planks and crunches.
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