What should I do if my neck hurts from doing sit-ups?

Sit-ups are not uncommon in our lives, and are the most difficult item for girls in many school physical education tests. However, for some people who do sit-ups for a long time, the effect on their abdominal muscle training is very obvious. However, for some people who do this for a long time, it will cause neck pain. Why does it cause neck pain? Let us explain the reasons to you below.

The reason why your neck hurts when you do sit-ups is that you hold your head with your hands and use your hands to pull your head to drive your upper body.

In this case, the cervical spine will be in a very unhealthy and abnormal posture. Simply put, you are bending your cervical vertebrae forward!

If you hold your head with your hands, pull your body to do sit-ups. In fact, the head is very forward. The cervical spine is also pulled forward by you. The cervical spine will become a very unnatural and pathological curvature! You are just using your life as a monk to do sit-ups!

Why why can you only do sit-ups with your hands over your head? Simply put, I think the latissimus dorsi is used in this movement. The main functions of the latissimus dorsi are to extend, adduct, and internally rotate the humerus.

When the humerus (upper arm is in the overhead position), the latissimus dorsi pulls the upper arm - the upper arm drives the forearm - the forearm drives the hand - the hand pulls the head - the head drives the neck - and finally the neck hurts...

So how do you do sit-ups correctly? If you want to train your abdominal muscles, I recommend doing crunches without holding your head, and you can do them at your sides or in front of your chest (the chest cannot completely exclude the help of other muscle groups).

If your abdominal muscles are not strong enough to move your body on their own, you can place your hands on your ears.

If you put your hands on the sides of your ears, at least a large part of the weight of your upper body will be borne by the latissimus dorsi. Then why does the latissimus dorsi muscles work even if you don’t hold your head with your hands? In this case, the latissimus dorsi pulls the arms and also the upper body.

The abdominal muscles are actually not a very powerful muscle group. For ordinary people, being able to do sit-ups without using the latissimus dorsi is already very good.

Therefore, it is recommended to hold your ears with your hands. ,

It can be seen that the posture requirements for sit-ups are still very important. Standing up like this with your hands on your head for a long time can easily lead to displacement of the spine and cause headaches. Therefore, for people who like to do sit-ups, they should pay attention to choosing the method of holding their ears with their hands. This can protect their spine from injury while strengthening their body.