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GHD Sit Ups, or shortened to GHDSU, are a phenomenal core/abdominal exercise which many members of the public won’t actually know. It is a common movement found in Crossfit boxes which focuses on strengthening the abs and other muscles of the front of the body (also known as the anterior chain). In this article we are going to break down what the movement is, how we recommend using it in your training and why it is a favourite of NRG’s.
What is a GHDSU:
Firstly a GHDSU is an advanced abdominal movement. This will scare a lot of people off before they even do it. Yes it is “advanced” in terms of difficulty, however it isn’t a difficult movement in terms of technique. You don’t have to have a lot of coordination, balance or masses of body weight strength like you see with a lot of core exercises, all you need is a bit of resilience and confidence!
How do you complete them?
For anyone who hasn’t seen a GHDSU before, have a look at this video below. This quick video talks through exactly what the movement is and how to complete it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pbZ8mX2D1U
Before you move on, do not be put off by the movement! A lot of people will see this movement and straight away think “that must be bad for your back”, or “there is no way I am doing that, it looks way too difficult” or even “crunches are much better than that!”. Trust the process, try the movement first before you pass judgement on a movement.
Yes, there a lot of exercises which you see online and on social media which are excessive or unrealistic to complete, however as we said earlier, this is a difficult movement but it isn’t a technically difficult movement!
Why are they beneficial?
Full Extension/Full Range: This is main benefit of GHDSU in our opinion! During movement, we want a clear relationship between concentric (muscle shortening) and eccentric (muscle lengthening). This should be clear in all isolation movements, however it isn’t always the case in abdominal movements. With crunches, lying on your back and raising the chest up, the abdominal muscles will shorten (concentric) as you sit up, but as you control to the floor, you won’t have enough space to lengthen the abdominal muscles.
This what makes the GHDSU great, as you hinge from the hips and reach back down to the floor, the muscles are all lengthening (the eccentric)! Then as we sit back up and reach forward to the toes, the muscles are then shortening (concentric). The abdominals are now working through full range, unlike previously. You wouldn’t do half a bicep curl so why do half a sit up??Hip Flexors: With more and more sedentary jobs and lifestyle, the more common it is to see people with tight and weak hip flexors from sitting in prolonged hip flexion. With the GHDSU, it forces you into hip extension in a safe position as you control down to the floor. Not only does this help lengthen the tissues of hip flexors by going into extension, it also strengthens them as we sit up again! Perfect for a real problem area in the modern wall.
Quads: The GHDSU also uses the quads to help drive back into the seated position, which if you break down, makes sense. Starting at the quads, they feed up into the hip flexors, which then lead up into the abdomen! So when you next try the GHDSU, squeeze your quads as hard as you can as you sit up and watch you fly back into the starting position (trust us, it works).
Global Spinal Movement: This is a tricky subject but is one we believe in strongly at NRG. The spine should be able to move through full flexion (bending forwards) and extending (leaning backwards), potentially with load. However when you add some load to people it can cause more harm with good. But with the GHDSU you are moving through a full spinal range, whilst the muscles of the anterior chain (abdomen, hip flexors, quads) are working in overdrive to move your body weight! If you can find another movement which is as safe as this which requires as much global spine movement, we will be surprised.
An Example of Spinal/Hip Extension: The woman is arching her spine and hip to create extension in the body
Down Sides:
- Blood Into The Head: this is unavoidable, spending periods of time with your head below your waist line you will end up with blood going towards the head. We know this can cause dizziness. However it can be manipulated by keeping your chin to your chest throughout the movement!
- Difficult: like we mentioned earlier, this is a difficult movement. It is unavoidable, the movement is harder and will be more difficult than some previous abdominal workouts you have done before, but does that make up for how good the movement is for the body? Absolutely.
- DOMS: another unavoidable… Delayed onset of muscle soreness is unavoidable. Unlike other abdominal workouts, this movement includes an eccentric phase. In the eccentric phase, when the muscles lengthen, the muscle fibres tear. The tearing of the muscles is what causes the DOMS and is completely natural as the tearing causes the muscles to repair stronger! So you will be sore the day after without a doubt.
What if I don’t have a GHD?
This is a problem, GHDs are not a common piece of equipment. If you have one at your disposal, great! Crack on! But if you don’t have that option we advice you either use a box and ask someone to hold your feet, just make sure the box is high enough that you don’t bang your head as you reach down. Alternatively if you have no partner, then place a box in a squat rack, load a barbell heavy in line with where the feet will be and place the feet on the inside of that (bar pad may be needed to take pressure off the foot). This will act as the foot rest that a GHD would provide.
When Should I Do Them?
It all depends on the experience of the athlete doing them, if you are a novice we would recommend a standard 3 sets of 10 reps protocol. However if you are a more advanced athlete, it may be worth adding them into a Crossfit style workout to help improve conditioning and strength of the “core” at the same time! NRG would recommend doing them at the back end of the workout rather than the start. The last thing you want to do is heavily fatigue the core/trunk before doing squats or deadlifts later on, that would be unwise!
And that concludes NRG’s view on “GHD Sit Ups: Our Favourite Abdominal Exercises”, we hope you enjoyed. We honestly believe so much in this movement and how beneficial it is for people. Give it a go and let us know how you get on!
Interested in working with NRG? Want to learn how NRG can help improve your performance and get you pain free? Then visit our injury assessment or personal training to see how exactly we can help. If you are based overseas, NRG also offer online services, with clients based from Hawaii to Beijing, Cape Town to Toronto, we promise that we can help no matter where you around the world.