Improving? Dedication, Hardwork, and Practice!

For anyone to succeed at a task, which could be taking a test or playing a basketball game, what is needed? Dedication, hardwork, and most of all practice are three characteristics that you can control for the amount of success you want to have.

The Fitness Gram Testing has assigned a curl-up for you to do. This is a modified sit-up. This is only one way to do a sit-up. There are a lot of ways you can do sit-ups. The only way you will be able to improve your score in this assessment is if you apply three easy words: dedication, hardwork, and practice. You use your core in everyone activity you do. It is vital to your success in sports and having a strong core gives you an edge over other athletes.

When talking about the core, you can exercise that everyday because you use it daily. If you were trying to improve and do more push-ups, you wouldn't want to do them everyday. You would need your body to rest and recover from the workout. There are many different ways you can workout your core. The more diverse the exercise is the better it will be for you.

There are many variations of sit-ups you can do to streghten the core.



1. Sit-ups 2. Sit-ups on an incline bench
3. Sit-ups with calves over bench 4. Incline leg raises
5. Leg raises 6. Cycling 7. Dumbell side bends 8. Broomstick twists

You can also do different variations of planks and using a medicine ball in your core workouts, too. We will be doing some planks and using the medicine balls in class to work on the core and I will be holding classes in the gymnasium from 2:30-3:30 every tuesday and thursday, just concentrating on the core. The classes will be intense, so bring plenty of water or gatorade.

Preparation

In preparation before completing the curl-up assessment, the class will complete another assessment that is a component of the Fitness Gram Testing. This is the Trunk lift. It's relationship with low back health, proper vertebral alignment, abdominal muscles, hamstrings, and back estensors works great with the curl-up. It is a great warm-up excercise to begin with, before taking part in curl-ups. The cobra stretch is another great warm-up before the curl-up. It also improves back health, too.



There are other options that you may explore and use to stretch your core. The next option that you may use to warm-up is lying on a pyhsioball, curling up your torso around the ball to release tightness in your abdominal muscles.

Evaluation Criterion

The numbers for the guys and girls will be different.

Boys
23 or less= Needs improvement
24-46= Healthy
46 or more= Fit

Girls
18 or less= Needs improvement
19-35= Healthy
35 or more= Fit

Assessment

The test objective is to complete as many curl-ups as possible up to a maximum of 75 at a specific pace.


This curl-up is a modified version of a sit-up. The protocol has been adapted from a version by Massicote (1990). The curl-up is safer and more effective, since it does not involve assistance of the hip flexor muscles and minimizes compression in the spine, thus compared to a full sit-up with the feet being held.





Peformance: You want to lie in supine position on the mat. Your knees should be bent at an angle of 140 degrees and feet flat on the floor. The legs are slightly apart and arms are straight parallel to the trunk with the palms of your hands resting of the mat. Next, you want to place a measuring strip under the person's legs, so when he or she comes up from the curl-up their fingertips are touching the edge of it. Then you want to place a piece of paper behind their head, so you know they are coming all the way down and correctly completing the assessment. The paper should crunch.

Curl-ups: Key for the Core

The strength and endurance of the abdominal muscles are important in developing and promoting correct pelvic alignment and good posture. It is important to maintain a lower healthy back. It also minimizes pain and weakness in hamstrings and lower back.