keyboard_warrior
Team Captain
Isolation exercises, especially sit ups are typically bad for your spine as they involve lots of abnormal spinal movement and stress. I spent many years doing situps, bridges and other ridiculous exercises in the gym trying to build my core strength, after 1 year of lifting heavy my core is far stronger and defined than ever (and I'm 35).
sit ups get a bad wrap. they dont involve any abnormal movement, your spine is designed to move into flexion and extension. Its poor technique that will put undue stress on the joints, like with any exercise i guess. its just they arent overly functional, but neither are many exercises that 'target the core'. but a sit up is more functional that a plank i guess.