I have had back problems for the last few years, and although I do a lot of stretching which seems to help at times, overall it's more bad than good. My dad has suggested that I do situps, and he reiterated it again this morning (I'm in Ohio now for the next month). He remembers reading in Reader's Digest 40+ years ago about how an imbalance between the back muscles (which get a good workout in daily life) and the stomach muscles (which apparently don't) can create back problems.

My dad is in his 70s, is arthritic, has bad shoulders, and hasn't had a good night's sleep in 10+ years. But, he runs a little every weekday, and after each run does one minute of situps. I asked him to show me how he does situps, and he got onto the living room floor, stuck his feet under a La-Z-Boy, and started doing normal full-range situps at the rate of about one per second. He stopped after 50. It took about a minute. I watched in wide-eyed wonder and amazement.

Normally, he watches a clock to time his minute, and gets about 45, so it's 1.25 sec each. He's never actually done 60 in a minute, but it's still extremely impressive even not considering his age.

When I was in 7th grade, I had the school-system (K-12) record for situps: 102 in two minutes, but those days are long past. My back simply hurts to much to do them. I'll have to ask Alan (who has a masters in sports physiology) how I might work on that.

In any case, I was cool to see him kick some serious sit-up butt. Think you're in shape? See if you can pound out 45 situps in a minute.