Question about sit-ups?

Question

Can I keep a good core-strength going and regulate my body weight (though I'm nowhere near being overweight) by doing 35 or 40 sit-ups every day? Or does it really not do that much?

Answer 1

Hi Nenna,
You've changed your hair. Very nice.
Well, something is always better than nothing. Keep that in mind. Doing 35-40 sit ups a day is better than doing none. As far as keeping core strength going you need to exercise more muscle groups. Situps, combined with squats, chin-ups, bench press and dips will cover all of the major muscle groups. Another good exercise is swimming, which is said to exercise almost every mucsle in your body and is also a very good conditioning exercise.
As far as regulating your weight you need to do something that burns calories. Long duration exercise tends to burn more fat than short stuff, like walking for an hour or two as opposed to running for 15 minutes. And the longer you do something the more calories you burn.
There is no magic exercise that will do it all for you. Every type of activity has its pluses and minuses. Running is great for your heart and burning calories but hard on your joints. The same is true for tennis. Swimming is great for a lot of things but it reduces bone mass.
An important thing is to pick something you enjoy. This will insure more than any other factor that you'll stick to it. Something you dread doing every day, unless you have something really strong driving you to do it, won't get done. Going to a gym where you have lots of friends is a good example. Even though you may not be crazy about making wieghts go up and down, you get to see and talk to your friends which will get you there. Or walking to work or school instead of driving. Spending time outside is nice and you have to go to school anyway and you're getting exercise so your killing two or three birds with one stone.
But, once again, if you want to do situps just do situps. Don't worry that it's not complete if it's something you want to do.

Answer 2

maintain a good core--mostly. this can be achieved through a variety of exercises, like sit-ups, and obliques

maintain weight--no. this must be achieved through aerobic exercise (running, biking, walking, swimming, etc...)