Are sit ups bad for your lower back?

As with most things it comes down to technique. The rest is marketing gimicks for lazy people.

Check out: ABDOMINAL EXERCISES it has lots of exercises broken out into levels with detail behind each one.

Then we can discuss particulars if needed.

As long as you've never had back problems before, I think you'd be OK with regular sit-ups. I mostly do a variety of crunch-type exercises, but I've been known to do sit-ups to mix it up a little and I've never had back problems.

Thanks or the website or the ab exercises. I will start adding some of those once I get to where I can do the situps easily. If nothing else, taking TKD has gotten me to do a little upper body work. It is funny what I will go through just to avoid being embarrased by a 10 year old.

this link is great! I was just going to ask about different abdominal exercisese. I do a blend of the hand to knee beginner, hand to knee intermediate, and nasty (lol, that was aptly labled! they ARE nasty!!! but they do help the lower abdominal...and the other two sets just aren't doing it for the lower abdominal part for me). I was just thinking, though, is it possible your body gets used to these exercises because lately I haven't really felt the burn, especially the beginner sets. One thing about crunches...if you do them wrong...it can really hurt. that's what you have to look out for with the "nasty" sets...at first i was hurting my neck doing these. :wavey:

The 'nasty' one used to really wear me out but it doesn't any more.

Do this one on a decline bench (head and the top, bottom at the bottom). When a PT showed me those a few months ago, I could barely do 6. Now I'm up to where I can do a few more for a few sets. They're still difficult though.