| Situps is a curse, not even a word… deffinetly not an exercise. What you want to do is a variety of crunches. Crunch is defined in my training sessions as being flat on your back, bending your knees up, imagining a string pulling your SHOULDERS up off the floor 3-5 inches while holding your head straight with your back. If you do it correctly, your neck will NEVER be bent, therefore you will not hurt your back. You (and anyone) should NEVER do situps. It was proven to harm more than to help years ago. Crunches can be done with extra resistance by bringing your hands and placing them of your tummy for the “easiest” crunch. Placing the hands on your chest will make the exercise a bit harder and placing them behind your neck (only fingers touching) will make it really hard to perform. Do NOT pull your head up off the floor… use your abs to squeeze the muscle and lift your shoulders off the floor. When you reach a level that crunches is no problem for you, try to place a book on your chest to increase the resistance. Now, there are Reverse crunches as well for the really lower abs. Be on your back, place your arms to the sides (like a cross) to maintain balance and now raise your knees towards your chest while your feet are at the same height of your knees. If you really want to challenge your self, be on your back, raise your legs up and maintain them straight as you can in vertical position. Now do a crunch…. This will really burn. Regarding repetitions: To START I would recommend three sets of 10 reps five days a week – never on the full stomach. When you feel comfortable with that, INCREASE the time of each repetition (do 5 seconds up, and 5 seconds down) and keep the same number of sets. Don’t EVER exercise fast! It never works. Always stretch your body before and after exercising. My wife had a C-section and with the above program she is nearly fully back to the flat abs she had before pregnancy. It took six months…. Hope it helps Ron | 
