3/4 Sit-Up

🎯 Abdominals🏋️ Body onlyBeginnerCompound

How to do the 3/4 sit-up

  1. Lie down on the floor and secure your feet. Your legs should be bent at the knees.
  2. Place your hands behind or to the side of your head. You will begin with your back on the ground. This will be your starting position.
  3. Flex your hips and spine to raise your torso toward your knees.
  4. At the top of the contraction your torso should be perpendicular to the ground. Reverse the motion, going only ¾ of the way down.
  5. Repeat for the recommended amount of repetitions.

Muscles worked

The prime movers are the rectus abdominis and the obliques, which flex the trunk forward and resist it being pulled into extension or twisted out of line.

Every exercise for:Abdominals

How this movement works

The load travels toward you and several joints bend to bring it there. The arms finish work the back starts, so grip and elbow flexors sit in the path of every repetition: when people stall on a compound pull, it is more often the hands giving out than the primary muscle running out of force.

It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.

What you need

No equipment at all. The resistance is your own bodyweight, so you progress by changing leverage, range or tempo rather than by adding plates — and you can do it anywhere.

Every exercise using:Body only

These train the abdominals too, using equipment this one does not:

Difficulty

Listed at beginner level: the pattern is simple enough to pick up without coaching, and a position that goes wrong mid-set is obvious enough to correct on the next repetition.

Of the 97 abdominals exercises in this database, 69 are listed at beginner level.

Related exercises

Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →

ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.