How to Stop Chafing When Doing Sit Ups

Monkey butt, Annie ass, butt berry, butt rash. What do all of these names have in common? Each of these names describe the chafing caused from a ton of sit ups during a workout. Whether you’re getting ready for beach season or your coach programmed “Annie” for your workout of the day, doing a lot of sit ups can hurt. So how do you stop chafing when doing sit ups? The answer is actually pretty simple.

Most of the time, chafing of the butt cheeks comes from your technique. It’s important to learn proper form and practice it often, in order to prevent chafing in the future. Read through these three pieces of advice in more detail to learn how to stop chafing when doing sit ups.

Preventing the Chafe

Advice #1: Perfect your form

When there are a lot of reps of any movement being done, form is usually the first to go. Remember, even though you want to go as fast as possible, it’s important to focus on your form. Engaging your core and making sure that your abs are tight throughout the entire up and down motion of a sit up is crucial to preventing chafing with sit ups. When your abs aren’t tight as you move to lay back down on the mat, your hips rise up. Because of that, you end up creating a sort of kipping motion when your butt lands back on the floor as you quickly re-engage and shoot back up to the sit up position. Therein lies the chafing. 

As you’re performing sit ups, try to remember to squeeze your butt and also keep your core tight on the way down. As you swing your arms up to gain momentum at the down position, the biggest thing to try and avoid on your way up is lifting your hips up. If you can keep your hips down as you move upwards, you should be able to prevent a fair amount of chafing with sit ups.

Advice #2: Stop blaming the butt

Some of us were gifted with bigger tushies. Some say the bigger the butt, the more your core strength comes into play when trying to prevent butt chafing. Big and small butts alike are all susceptible to chafing though because it all comes back to form. So stop blaming your butt size for your chafing and look for the potential weakness behind the chafing. A lot of times weaker core strength is the culprit. If you can’t keep your core engaged during a lot of sit ups, you’re probably going to start losing form and potentially chafe. 

The best advice for those with weaker core strength, regardless of your bottom size, is to take it slower. The sooner you master proper sit up form, the sooner your core strength increases and the sooner you can say goodbye to constant chafing from large volumes of sit ups!

Advice #3: Try different abmats

Another thing you can try as you increase your core strength is different types of abmats. Rogue created these abmats with the tailbone in mind. Reviews for these wise crack abmats speak for themselves with multiple reviews saying they no longer get monkey butt or raspberries when they do sit ups.

Sometimes, your butt just slips and slides on whatever surface you’re doing your sit ups. If you haven’t tried it already, consider placing a yoga mat or thick individual mat under you. Having a mat under you can help any extra slipping that may be occurring.

At the end of the day, if you chafe, be sure to take care of it. Wash the sore with soap and water to prevent any infection. If you’re working with a personal trainer or coach, reach out to them on how they might suggest you prevent the rash moving forward. As with anything else in life, practicing and working on your sit ups technique will help you end your chafing struggles!

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