Written by Shane Mclean | ACE CPT
Fact checked by Kirsten Yovino, CPT Brookbush Institute
FACT CHECKED
What neglected exercise trains grip strength, upper back strength, hip flexors, and a strong set of abs all at once? Well, the cat has already been let out of the bag considering you know the title of this post - it's the Hanging Leg Raise.
The hanging leg raise, which is one of the best core and ab exercises there is, is an exercise that will not only build physical strength but mental strength as well. Because if you’re doing it right, you’ll be hating life just a little.
Here we’ll go into a deep dive on the hanging leg raise:
- What is a hanging leg raise
- How to do a hanging leg raise
- Common mistakes with hanging leg raises
- Muscles worked & benefits
- Programming tips
- Best variations & alternatives
WHAT ARE HANGING LEG RAISES?
The hanging leg raise is an advanced bodyweight exercise that builds strength in the hip flexors, abdominal muscles, grip, and upper back. The exercise involves hanging from a chin-up bar and raising your legs (which you will keep straight/extended) up and down while keeping your upper body perpendicular to the floor. Essentially, you are creating a 90 degree angle between your upper and lower body. To do this, you'll engage your grip, upper back, lats and core to keep your upper body fixed and stable, and then raise your legs up until they are parallel with the floor, then slowly lower them back down, and repeat. This movement is going to hit your abs and hip flexors like crazy.
A popular variation (or progression) of the hanging leg raise is to bring your feet up towards the bar rather than to just parallel with the floor. This will cause your hips to lift up and create a sort of reverse crunch. This version will increase range of motion and can allow you to create even more tension in your abs on the way down when going slowly.
Either way, both parallel and toes-to-bar hanging leg raises are great for your abs and core as a whole. Hanging leg raises put your hip flexors and abs in a battle against gravity - ultimately with you being the winner!
When you want to develop high levels of core, grip, and upper back strength, this is a great exercise for developing those muscle groups. Plus, the hanging leg raise is great for stabilizing muscles such as the lats and shoulders.
Hanging Leg Raise vs Hanging Knee Raise:
The hanging leg raise often gets confused with the hanging knee raise, but they are different exercises. With the hanging knee raise, you tuck the knees towards the chest rather than raising the legs straight up. This makes it an easier exercise to perform because the lever (legs) has been reduced. The hanging knee raises are a good alternative if you find the hanging leg raise too difficult.
HOW TO DO A HANGING LEG RAISE:
Note: This exercise needs a bar that you can grip above your head and hang from (ideally a full hang so your feet don't touch the ground when your arms are extended). This bar must be stable and able to support your full body weight, plus the stress of when you raise and lower your legs. A proper pull-up bar is a great choice - using a door frame or ledge is not.
- Grip the pull-up bar with an overhand grip, your thumbs wrapped around the bar to improve stability. Have a shoulder-width or wider than shoulder-width grip. This is a matter of personal preference.
- Engage your upper back and keep your chest up as you exhale as you lift your feet off the ground, raising your straight legs in front of you.
- Tilt your pelvis slightly back while engaging your abs and hip flexors to bring your legs up.
- Raise your legs to parallel with the ground (by not rounding your lower back). If you can raise them higher than this, it is perfectly okay.
- Lower your legs back down slowly until they return to the starting position, inhaling on the way down. Keep your glutes engaged to maintain your posterior pelvic tilt.
COMMON MISTAKES WHEN DOING HANGING LEG RAISES:
This is a difficult full-body move with a lot of moving parts. To get the most out of the hanging leg raise and to prevent injury please watch out for these common mistakes,
- Avoid Using Momentum: Don't swing your legs up using momentum. Yes, you will get the movement done but the working muscle of the hip flexors and abs will lose tension. Instead, raise your legs with control to fully engage your core. If you don't have enough strength to raise your legs without momentum, start with a dead hang and work your way to this move.
- Upper Back Rounded: Losing the upper body position during the hanging leg raise means you will not get the most out of this exercise. Plus, you may put the shoulder joint at risk. Keep your shoulders down and chest up to keep your spine neutral to help protect them and get the most out of this exercise.
- Lowering Legs Too Fast: Like using momentum to raise the legs, don’t let gravity win when lowering your legs. Your core muscles work hard during both concentric and eccentric phases. If you let gravity win and lower them too quickly, you’ll miss the benefit. Keep the lowering slow and controlled, avoiding any swaying, or swinging.
This is an advanced exercise, so it may be one that you need to build strength and work up to if you are a beginner.
OTHER THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR:
This is a movement will a lot of moving parts and total body engagement. Keeping you safe is of utmost importance. Please check the bar or hanging apparatus you’re using is stable and well-maintained. You may need to avoid hanging leg lifts if you:
- are pregnant or post-partum.
- have diastasis recti.
- recently had abdomen surgery.
- are recovering from injuries or a surgery involving your back, neck, arms, or legs.
- lack the grip strength to hang.
MUSCLES TRAINED BY THE HANGING LEG RAISE:
The hanging leg raise need the muscles of the upper and lower body to work to flex and extend your torso. Here are the main lower and upper body muscles trained by the hanging leg raise.
CORE & LOWER BODY:
- Iliopsoas: Is two muscles the iliacus and the psoas major. These muscles are known as the hip flexors and are the prime movers for flexing your thing and torso. This muscle is the primary muscle trained during a hanging leg raise.
- Rectus Abdominis: Otherwise known as the six-pack muscle, the rectus abdominis is the most superficial muscle of the abdominals that flex, rotate the lower back, and stabilize your pelvis during all locomotion activities. Both the upper area and lower area of the rectus abdominis is fully activated.
- Obliques: The obliques are minimally involved when your knees reach parallel when performing the hanging leg raise.
- Rectus Femoris: This is one of the four quadriceps muscles and the only one that crosses the hip and knee joint. When raising your straight leg with your hips flexed, the rectus femoris is fully engaged.
- Tensor Fascia Latae: This assists the iliopsoas and rectus femoris muscles during hip flexion of bringing your legs up to parallel.
- Adductors: The hip adductors are a group of muscles on the inner thighs that assist with flexing the hip during the hanging leg raise.
UPPER BODY:
- Forearms Flexors & Extensors: The forearm group of muscles work isometrically to keep the wrist in neutral and to keep you hanging on to the bar as long as possible.
- Rotator Cuffs: The main job of the rotator cuff (SITS muscle) is to keep the shoulder joint vertical and stabilized at all costs. The cuff is keeping the shoulder joint stabilized while performing the hanging leg raise.
- Rhomboids, Middle & Upper Traps: Otherwise known as the upper back. These muscles are working isometrically to keep your spine neutral so the targeted muscle can do their job.
BENEFITS OF PERFORMING HANGING LEG RAISES:
Hanging leg raises, while effective in building strength and muscle in your core area for vanity benefits have other important benefits too. Here are some advantages of performing hanging leg raises:
- Grip Strength: Being in the hang position with the only thing stopping you from crashing to the ground is the strength of your grip. The hanging leg raise as a side benefit will improve your hand, wrist and forearm strength.
- Improve Shoulder Mobility And Stability: The hang position above your head gives your shoulder area for extended time stretches and helps realign your shoulder area and lats. This helps to undo some of the damage of rounded shoulders due to sitting too much. The gripping engages your rotator cuff and helps build their strength and endurance too. Both these help with better posture and shoulder health.
- Reduces Lower Back Pain: Hanging leg raises can help reduce your lower back pain. Being in a hang position allows the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and discs in your spine to lengthen and relax by taking pressure off the back. It is a cheap form of spinal decompression. Strengthening your back in this position helps you fight the battle against back pain.
- Ab Hypertrophy And Strength: This exercise can often be done in higher volumes when you build up the required grip strength which makes a good option to build muscular endurance and hypertrophy in your hips and six-pack muscles (or however many packs you have)
- Strengthens Hip Flexors Without Crunching: Both hip flexor muscles the sartorius and the iliopsoas are strengthened during hanging leg raises. The sartorius assists with hip and knee flexion and the iliopsoas flex the hip to draw the thighs to the torso. While traditional crunches down on the floor train the abs from the top-down, hanging leg raises strengthen the hip flexors and abs from the bottoms up while minimizing spinal flexion.
PROGRAMMING SUGGESTIONS:
Hanging knee raises are a fantastic core exercise and a great accessory exercise for grip strength and chin-ups and pull-ups. Here are a few programming suggestions dependent on your fitness level:
- Beginners To The Hanging leg Raise: For beginning trainees, grip strength, skill coordination strength, or muscular endurance may all be limitations in performing this exercise. If this is the case performing at the beginning of your training works well. Start with two to three sets of five to eight repetitions, focusing on good technique each time until you’re able to add more sets or reps.
- Intermediate Strength Lifter: When you have a base level of skill and strength to perform the hanging leg raise it is time for building some strength and muscle in the hip flexors and abs. Doing three or four sets of eight to 15 repetitions two to three times per week works well.
- Advanced Strength Lifter: Adding weight to this exercise can be tricky because it encourages excessive momentum and recruitment of the hip flexor muscles and this losing tension on the abs, which is the point of this exercise. It’s better to add volume than to add weight. Do three to five sets of 12 to 15 reps two to three times per week. When this becomes easy adding a light dumbbell between your ankles works well.
HANGING LEG RAISES VARIATIONS AND ALTERNATIVES:
You can perform the hanging leg raise in different ways, depending on your fitness level and to make it easier at the start and to give more of a challenge as you get better:
1. ROMAN CHAIR LEG RAISE
The Roman Chair (or Power Tower) leg raise gives your back and arm support to a trainee who has the required core or grip strength to do a hanging leg raise yet. The backrest prevents body swaying and the loss of grip allowing the trainee to focus on the leg raise part of the movement.
How to do The Roman Chair Leg Raise:
- Position yourself in an upright roman chair and make sure your back is pressed against the backrest. Plus, be sure your elbows are directly under your shoulders when putting them on the pad.
- Begin the exercise by slowly raising your legs up until they are parallel to the ground while keeping your knees straight.
- Slowly lower legs back down to the starting position and reset and repeat.
2. HANGING KNEE RAISE
If you’re having trouble bringing your legs up while straight to parallel, try the bent leg version. This shortens the lever (your legs) to make this exercise easier while still getting all the benefits of the hanging leg raise. Use your core and hip flexors to bring your knees up to waist level, so they are bent at 90 degrees. When your strength level increases, work on extending your legs when your knees reach your waist and then lowering the extended legs.
How to do The Bent-Leg Hanging Raise:
- Set up as you would for the hanging leg raise but bend your knees to 90 degrees.
- Bring your knees up to parallel with using momentum.
- Straighten your legs and slowly lower down.
- Bent the knees again and repeat for repeats.
3. TOES TO BAR
To increase the difficulty of the hanging leg raise continue raising your legs up until your toes reach the bar. This increase in range of motion causes the rectus abdominis and hip flexors to work even harder. Only do this more challenging variation when you feel comfortable with your strength level.
How to do The Toes To Bar:
- Set up as you would for the hanging leg raise
- Engage your back muscles and lean back a bit. Imagine you are doing a straight arm pulldown.
- Flex your back, abs, legs, butt, and arms, and raise your legs as you actively pull the bar down with your hands.
- As you approach the top you’ll need to make and kick the toes towards the bar.
4. WEIGHTED HANGING LEG RAISE
When you're ready to progress the hanging leg raise with weight adding ankle weights or holding a light dumbbell or medicine ball between your feet will do the trick. When performing this variation, choose a weight that you are able to lift without sacrificing your technique and you are able and hold it securely between your feet.
How to do The Weighted Hanging Leg Raise:
- Hold a dumbbell or a medicine ball between your feet.
- Reach up and grab the pull-up bar and pick your feet off the ground.
- Repeat steps 2 to 3 of the hanging leg raise above
- Keeping your legs straight raise your feet up to your midsection and then lower them back down.
- Reset and repeat for reps.
5. HOLLOW ROCK
If you don’t have the required grip strength but still want to train your core and hip flexors the hollow rock will build up the hip flexor and ab strength while working on your grip strength to hang on to the bar for time. So, when you build up your grip and core strength you will crush the hanging leg raise.
How to do The Hollow Rock:
- Lie face up on the floor with your feet together and bring them four to six inches off the ground.
- Then bring the arms overhead with your biceps by your ears. Press your lower back into the floor. Now you are in the hallow hold position.
- While in the strong hollow position, gently rock forwards lifting the arms off the floor and backward, lifting the legs of the floor while maintaining core constant tension.
- Do this either for time or reps.
6. FARMER'S CARRY
You might be wondering why farmers carry is on this list. Simple nothing builds grip strength, shoulder stability, core strength, and conditioning as the farmers carry. Hanging leg raises requires you to be physically and mentally tough and so does the farmers' carry. When you need to build the grip, the strength required to hang from the bar, carry some heavy weights around.
How to The Farmers Carry:
- Select a dumbbell from the rack that is between 25-50% of your bodyweight and grip in each hand.
- Grip tight with your shoulders down and chest up.
- Walk slowly at least 40 yards keeping good posture.
- Place the dumbbells back into the rack and rest and repeat.
NOTE: Some gyms have an attachment for a pull up bar called a sling strap where you can place your arms in and do hanging leg raises. It basically just removes grip from the equation. So, if your grip strength is lacking and your gym has it, you can use it, but be sure to work on grip strength in the meantime.
Other variations of the hanging leg raise involve side raises or windshield wipers, which are great if you want to incorporate more oblique work.
FINAL NOTE:
Aim to train your core 2-3 times per week using the above exercises and other good core exercises. If you aren't doing hanging leg raises, definitely add them into the mix. They are truly one of the best core exercises you can do for your abs and overall core strength.
If you can't do hanging leg raises even for a few reps per set, then work up to it with exercises like floor leg raises, Roman chair leg raises, and hanging knee raises. Eventually, you'll be able to do the hanging leg raise. The great thing about core strength is, it develops pretty quickly!
Shane Mclean
Author