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If you're having back pain, do some back strengthening exercises before you start doing sit ups. Try this: Lie on the ground. Take a deep breath and then suck in your stomach, trying to get it down toward the floor. Tightening your buttocks may help here. Then raise both legs off the floor, keeping your knees bent at a 90 degree angle. Don't raise your hips, just your legs, so that your thighs are perpendicular to the floor. Then slowly lower one leg to the floor. Raise it, then lower the other. Do that 10-12 times for one set. As you do it, concentrate on keeping your stomach in and your lower back against the floor. Don't arch your back at all.
Instead of a sit up, do crunches. Again, press your lower back to the floor. Put your hands behind your head, but don't support your head with your hands at all; just lightly touch your fingers to your head. Then slowly curl your head and shoulders off the floor until your shoulder blades are up. Hold it for a second, and then return to the original position. Again, don't arch your back at all, and keep it on the floor. Try to feel the tension in your upper abs, right below your rib cage. If you feel the tension, you're doing the exercise right. Crunches have less impact on your back, and if you're having back pain, you don't want to do sit ups.
Do oblique crunches too. Lie on the floor as with the other exercises. Cross your right leg over your left knee. Put your left arm behind your head (like in a regular crunch) and curl your left shoulder up and toward your right knee as your bring your right knee toward your left elbow. You don't have to touch knee to elbow. Lower back to starting, and repeat 10-12 times. Then repeat with the other side of your body (left leg on right knee, right elbow toward left knee). Try to feel the tension running down the side of your abs as you do this. If you can, you're doing it with enough tension; if you can't, try tightening your stomach a bit more.
In all exercises like this, don't hurry yourself. Emphasize a slow and steady contraction from the starting position to the midpoint and then back to the start. Concentrate on keeping proper form. If you find your mind wandering as you exercise, you'll start getting sloppy form, and that means you'll get less benefit because you're wasting energy. These exercises isolate a single muscle as much as possible, so resist any temptation to let any other muscle get involved.
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