When it comes to calories, different types of exercises burn calories differently. There are certain exercise groups that are known for burning calories, while others are known for other things like building strength. Cardiovascular exercises are known for burning the most calories. Just like certain groups are known for burning different amounts of calories, the same applies to different individual exercises. In this read, we shall look at how many sit ups to burn 1000 calories.
Sit Ups: Why Are They So Popular?
A sit up is an abdominal workout that helps strengthen your core. It works many muscles simultaneously hence it is a multi-muscle workout. Some of the muscles it engages include the hip flexors, the chest muscles, the neck muscles, the abs, the obliques and many more. What makes sit ups able to do all this has to do with their form as well as their range of motion. Sit ups are part of most people’s workout because of the many advantages they come with. With that said, here are some benefits of doing sit-ups.
People mostly exercise due to the benefits that come from a certain exercise. Exercises that offer more benefits are preferred compared to those that don’t offer many benefits. You can tell an exercise offers a lot of benefits by how popular it is and sit ups are among the most popular exercises. Here are some benefits of doing sit-ups:
Doing Sit Ups Is Cheap
There are many exercises that require different equipment in order to do them. The same cannot be said for sit-ups. Sit ups are body weight exercises which means they use the body to provide resistance against gravity. The only thing you might be required to buy is a yoga mat. This makes them very cheap hence mostly people can do them without thinking of any expenses. The fact that they are also bodyweight exercises means that they are great at building stamina as the workout pretty much becomes tougher the stronger you get. In addition to all that, they can also be done anywhere. You can literally do sit ups in school, in the office, at home, at the parks or anywhere really since they require no equipment and just a little space.
Anyone Can Do Sit Ups
Anyone can do a sit up. They are easy to do as their form is not complicated. Regardless of your gender, age, or fitness level; you can easily do a sit up unless instructed against them by an expert or you have an underlying health condition.
Work Multiple Muscles At A Time
We all have busy schedules, maybe it’s school or work hence nobody has time to spend more than roughly two hours in the gym. What this means is that you mostly don’t have enough time to concentrate on each muscle individually and here is where compound exercises come in. Compound workouts are exercises that enable you to work more than one muscle at a time and sit ups just happen to be compound exercises. Sit ups help you get the most out of the little gym time you have by almost providing a full body workout. The fact that they work a lot of muscles at the same time means you don’t have muscles being left behind leading to uneven gains (1).
Sit Ups Help Strengthen Your Core
A strong core is very important not just for exercising but normally daily activities. All movements like walking, picking up something from the ground are initiated from the core. Sits ups help strengthen the core by working the muscles in the core. They work muscles such as the rectus abdominis, the internal and external obliques, and the transverse abdominis. Sit ups also help with core stability and control in addiction to helping with core strength. When your core is stable, you are able to do normal everyday activities easily and also prevent back pains when you get older. A stable core is more equipped to prevent falling and thus it also helps reduce fall injuries (2).
Sit Ups Help With Spinal Flexibility
Sit ups help improve your spinal cord flexibility due to their form. Doing sit ups in the correct form moves each vertebra in your spine and this helps stretch the spine as well as make it flexible. A flexible spine makes mobility easier and also helps prevent back pains.
Sit Ups Help Strengthen The Hip Flexor
This is among the muscles sit-ups help strengthen. Hip flexors are responsible for most of the movements we make in our everyday lives, such as walking, jumping, and bending. When you have a strong hip flexor, all these movements become easier.
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Sit Ups Help Define Your Abs
When it comes to the abs topic, sit ups are one of the exercises usually thrown into the conversation. This is from the belief that sit ups help with the formation of abs, of which it is not true as there are many exercises that come to play when it comes to abs. That does not mean that sit ups don’t do anything for abs as they help define your abs better. They achieve this from the fact that they work the rectus abdominis intensely. When you perform sit ups oftenly, they help increase the size of your six packs as well as define them better.
Just like any other exercise, it is important to know the right way of doing a sit up. Doing a sit up in the right form will help prevent injuries. Injuries ruin your fitness progress as you have to stop working out. Maintaining the right form while doing sit ups also enables you to experience the benefits associated with doing them. With that said, here is how to do a sit up:
You start by lying down on your back on a flat surface. A flat surface will prevent you from getting injured.. While lying flat, bend your legs at your knees and make sure your feet are firmly flat on the ground. You should create a 90-degree angle at the knee area by bringing your feet closer to your behind.
The next step is to take your hands and place them behind your head. You can choose to put your hands behind your head or you can choose to cross them on your chest. This is the original starting position.
Then raise your body until it is no longer on the floor, and your chest is close to your thighs. Exhale as you raise your body upwards.
Slowly lower yourself back to the initial starting position as you inhale.
If you are new to the sit-up, you should try to do 10 reps at a time.
Sits ups are more of a calisthenic exercise than a cardio exercise. That means that sit ups don’t burn as many calories as other exercises like jumping rope, running or even swimming does. When it comes to burning calories, there are two things that will change how many calories a workout will burn. One of those things is intensity and the other is duration. In terms of intensity, the harder you do an exercise the more calories you burn, and the less intense the exercise is the less calories you burn. In terms of duration, the longer you work out, the more calories you burn and vice versa. To increase the number of calories an exercise burns, you need to increase the intensity and the duration.
Just because we’ve said how many sit ups to burn 1000 calories, it does not mean they don’t burn any calories at all as even just breathing burns calories. A fit person can approximately do 50 sit ups in 1 minute. 50 sit ups burn 10 calories. From that number, you can be able to see how many sit ups it would take a fit person to burn 1 pound of fat which is equivalent to 3500 calories. It takes a fit person 17500 sit ups to burn 3500 calories of fat. Not everyone is fit hence not everyone is able to do 50 sit ups in 1 minutes. An averagely fit person can approximately do 25 sit ups in 1 minute. Although it might take the person the same number of sit ups to burn 1 pound of fat, it will take the person double the time.
Since we are now aware of how many sit ups it takes to burn 3500 calories, you can easily calculate how many sit ups you need to do in order to burn 1000 calories. If 17500 sit ups burn 3500 calories, it would require a person to do 5000 sit ups to burn 1000 calories. To burn more calories, you have to increase the intensity of the workout or do the workout longer. Sit ups have many variations that help increase the intensity of the exercise resulting in more calories burned.
The Bottom Line
The answer to the question of how many sit ups to burn 1000 calories is 5000 sit ups. Although this is not the answer you expected, sit ups are more equipped to help you build strength than burn calories. Building strength and muscles can help you burn calories as muscles have a higher resting metabolism compared to fat mass hence this is one way sit ups can aid in burning calories.
If you want to burn more calories, we suggest you go for cardio exercises like jump rope, running, swimming, cycling and the likes as they burn the most calories. When doing sit ups, it is advisable to hold the right form as this prevents injuries and helps you enjoy the benefits associated with doing them. To burn more calories from sit ups, it is better to go for variations that are more intense as they burn more calories. Anyone can do sit ups unless advised otherwise by a health practitioner or unless you have an underlying health condition.
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Being able to workout without the feeling of judgment. But also to feel freedom and flexibility at the same time was amazing.
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