Hanging Leg Raise is hang from a chin-up bar with both arms extended at arm’s length in top of you using either a wide grip or a medium grip.
The legs should be straight down with the pelvis rolled slightly backward.
Raise your legs until the torso makes a 90-degree angle with the legs.
Standing in the frame, you use the chair’s two arms to support your body weight as you raise the legs.
Hanging leg raises require enough upper-body strength to support your body weight. You also need to be able to use the frame.
But when you’re ready, these exercises can be a useful addition to a strength-training routine, as they help work several muscles at once.
Hanging Leg Raise: Benefits
The exercise targets the abdominal muscles (rectus abdominis), hip flexors (iliopsoas), and the external obliques.
It also introduces isolation techniques.
Not only is isolation important to many other exercises, but it can also help improve your functional fitness level, prevent and reduce pain, and help you avoid injury.
In your day-to-day life, you’ll engage many different muscles groups to complete tasks like climbing stairs or carrying groceries.
As you participate in your activities of daily living, these muscles have to coordinate and work together.
Isolation exercises can give you the opportunity to identify your body’s unique areas of weakness and develop a workout to strengthen them.
Step-by-Step Instructions
- Stand in the frame with your arms resting on the arms of the chair. Grab on to the handles of the chair, if it has them.
- Check that your arm position is firm (you need to be able to lift your bodyweight from the floor).
- Inhale as you engage your abdominal muscles to prepare for the leg lift.
- Lift your legs by bending at the knees. Go no higher than your waist.
- With an engaged core, exhale as you lower your legs in a controlled movement until you’re back in the starting position.
- Aim for 8 to 10 raises before resting (one set). Work up to 3 sets of 10 raises.
