As a fitness editor, there’s nothing I love more than uncovering a celebrity’s workout secrets, especially when it comes to transformations for a role. I have already written about home workouts that Lily James used for her transformation from Pam and Tommybut recently, I saw TikTok blow up with another one of James’ workouts, and it involves doing 600 sit-ups.
In an interview with cosmopolitan uk (opens in a new tab)James said: “We trained five times a week; running, circuits, weights, working out in the gym and on the track. It was a crazy time. When I first had to lift weights, do squats and run for ten minutes, I was knackered and wanted to throw up.” However, he also said, “I got really obsessed with abs! Every time the Director yelled ‘cut!’ I was there on the ground hitting them. We had to do like 600 different types of sit-ups a day, so my stomach changed more, you end up looking healthier and stronger,” which seems to be where TikTok got this challenge from.
A reminder that what works for James, or me, might not be right for you and your body. 600 reps is a high number for any exercise, and if you’re a beginner, new to ab workouts, or returning to exercise after an injury, it’s a good idea to check with a personal trainer to make sure your form is correct beforehand. to add hundreds of reps to your workout.
What is the Lily James 600 Rep Abs Workout?
So it’s not exactly clear if James Really did 600 sit-ups every day (hey, it worked for David Harbour, who did 1,000 sit-ups a day to prepare for Stranger Things 4), or if I was exaggerating here, but the TikTok challenge definitely seems to focus on the number 600. Fantastic.
The silver lining here is that James says “different types of abs” which makes the challenge a bit more interesting. I did some research on different crunch variations, unrolled my yoga mat, and tried the challenge; read on to find out what happened.
Just Tried Lily James’ 600 Rep Ab Workout – Here’s What Happened
After trying Harbor’s 1000 crunches last week, there was no way I was going to sign up for another mind-numbingly boring workout challenge. In an attempt to make this one more interesting, I went for six reps of 100 and chose a different crunch variation each time. This is what I looked for:
100 leg raise crunches
100 bike crunches
100 swiss ball crunches
100 dead insects
100 leg raise crunches
100 regular sit-ups
All of these exercises target the abs, but the different variations target slightly different muscles in the core to really feel the burn. It also made it a bit more interesting than just doing endless sit-ups. That being said, 50 reps on the 100 leg raise crunches, I found that 100 reps of any exercise is also a huge amount of kudos to Lily James, this challenge is no joke.
@engineeroleenfit (opens in a new tab) BRB trying to look like Pam Anderson. Lily did it in 4 months and I’m 10 months old so I can definitely do it.
♬ all the time – amelia (opens in a new tab)
I’ve also been a bit misleading here and left out some of the ab exercises I really hate: V crunches, reverse crunches, and Russian twists are all crunch variations that could be swapped here, but I’m not that dedicated. sorry team
Either way, by the time I got to the dead bugs, my core was on fire and I was having flashbacks of the torturous moment I did it. 100 dead insects a day for a week, (and earned a reputation as a ‘dead bug girl’ in the office). After the dead bugs, I stopped and lay on my exercise mat for a few minutes, watching videos of other people attempting the challenge on TikTok to make sure I wasn’t alone.
By the time I got to the regular crunches at the end, I was doing 10 reps at a time with short breaks in between. Congratulations to Lily James: she worked very hard to transform her body in four months. I’ll warn you now, this is a real core burner and not one I’ll repeat in a hurry.
