I did 90 hanging leg raises daily for a week, but have shelved the exercise until further notice.
The fitness challenge overlapped with command planks every day for a week, so it’s safe to say my legs need to catch up. Hanging leg raises target the abdominal muscles, especially the lower abdomen and hip flexors, activate the lats, and improve shoulders and grip strength. isometric contraction (opens in new tab) (without bending or extending the arm).
While hanging from the bar, your legs should be lifted toward your chest during the move. This will also improve your hamstring flexibility. But remember that exercise works best with variety. We do not recommend 90 exercises every day. Take recovery days into account and mix things up to create a complete strength training routine for him. And these are the perfect yoga mats to recover from later.
How to do a hanging leg raise
Hanging leg raises can be modified from beginner to advanced. First, practice with your knees bent, then extend your legs forward. This will strengthen your hip flexors and increase hamstring flexibility.
how:
- Stand under the pull-up bar and grip slightly wider than shoulder width
- Wrap your thumbs around the bar and fully extend your arms
- Pull your pelvis toward your spine and tighten your stomach muscles
- Hang from the bar with your legs extended and exhale as you pull your legs toward your chest.
- Pause, then lower your leg to the starting position.
Slightly retract your pelvis and tighten your abdominal muscles. This move primarily targets the rectus abdominis muscles, including those hard-to-reach lower abs (this lower ab workout is also our go-to). Lifting will work your hip flexors.
I did 90 hanging leg raises every day for a week — this is what happened to my core
I suffered burns on my upper body. Here’s why:
First day
The Hanging Leg Raise is the stronger sibling of the Laying Leg Raise. This is an advanced version of the move, so if you haven’t tried it before, practicing the leg raise first will improve your technique.
My grip strength needed improvement, so I put on grip gloves and did 12 reps with a 20-30 second rest between sets. The forearms and wrists suffered first, but not for long.
2nd and 3rd day
The challenge combined with doing 90 command planks every day for a week already made my shoulders heat up. The trick is to get as much upper body engagement as possible while working his shoulders, back, chest and core muscles as one solid unit.
I had to drop down a few times, but most of the time I was able to do 12 reps each time before resting. I alternated between keeping my knees bent and extending my legs. This immediately activated the quadriceps, hamstrings and hip flexors for even more strength. However, I found it difficult to stretch my toes over the bar multiple times, so I alternated for the rest of the day.
Days 4 and 5
After the halfway point, I knew my body was tired. My lower back and left rotator cuff muscles started to hurt so I needed to work more on my stabilizing muscles and my core.
The rectus abdominis muscle runs along the front of the body from the ribs to the pelvis. Commonly referred to as “six pack muscles”, these are the muscles that shredded athletes see when they take off their tops during a workout. You can target these popular muscles through crunches and movements that require core extension and flexion. This move helps activate your lower abs by targeting your hip flexors as you move your legs.
Remember, body fat plays a pivotal role in defining muscle. You can learn here how to calculate your body fat percentage and why it matters. But if you want to strengthen your torso, shoulders, and hips, consider this core exercise.
research (opens in new tab) Leg raises have been shown to significantly increase hip flexor activation (mine was shivering), but if you suffer from lower back pain, treat this exercise with caution and start with Please consult your doctor.
6th day
Added weight.
Could my decision to attempt 90 reps be a form of self-sabotage? I briefly added a light dumbbell between my legs on day five, then quickly removed it again.
Yeah, that gave me more strength in my hips and abs, but I started swinging my torso.
I used my own weight to keep my pelvis from tilting toward my spine so it wasn’t fully released at the bottom of each rep. You don’t need to add weights to this move—with proper gymnastics training, you can squeeze without weights. Instead, they moved slowly and controlledly, utilizing a technique called time under tension, which increases the amount of time a muscle spends contracting.
ah.
Day 7
With the end in sight, I decided to scrap the format and tackle as many rep’s as possible at once for Core Burst Burnout before giving my shoulders some much-needed TLC. By the end of the final 90 repetitions, I was saying goodbye to the pull-up bar and my aching core I took it home to rest.
verdict? After 630 repetitions, I still can’t get off the couch.
