When it comes to abdominal exercises, Hanging Leg Raises is one of the most challenging. This exercise shakes your core and challenges your mobility on the hip flexors and abs. Here’s everything you need to know about this exercise before you master it.
What is Hanging Leg Raises?
Hanging Leg Raises mimic the starting position of a pull-up. You start with a free hang hold. This workout is a great exercise for your abs. It targets your hip flexors and your lower abs. As it targets them against gravity putting you at a disadvantage, it is a great exercise. The exercise is also a great way to stabilize your lats and your forearms.
Benefits of Hanging Leg Raises
There are a lot of benefits to Hanging Leg Raises. The primary benefit is effectiveness in the core building. But, apart from this, there are a lot of benefits to this exercise.
Grip Strength
The first of these is improving grip strength. When you suspend yourself off the ground, you only hold up with your hand, wrist, and forearm strength. This greatly helps in improving your grip strength.
Shoulder Mobility and Stability
The next benefit of Hanging Leg Raises is shoulder stability and mobility. In regular life, we spend most of our days with our arms below our heads. We are busy on the keyboard, the wheel, or some other way. But, we have very few moments with our arms above our heads. This exercise and hanging yourself gives the shoulders a chance to breathe. It allows the shoulder to strengthen and lengthen.
Helps Back Pain
The final benefit of Hanging Leg Raises is the improvement in backaches. If you are prone to back pain then a hang position can be beneficial for you. In this position, your joints are in traction. This traction allows your ligaments, joints, muscles, and discs to relax and lengthen. This takes a lot of pressure off your back giving it a chance to relax and heal.
How to Perform Hanging Leg Raises
There is a possibility that you injure yourself if you do not perform the Hanging Leg Raises in proper form. So, here is a guide to performing these exercises in a safe and proper form.
Firstly, you will need a strong, and sturdy overhead bar. You can very easily find these bars in a gym. This bar needs to be able to support your weight as you are going to grip it above your head and hang on it. Grip this bar with an overhand grip. This means that your thumbs will wrap around the bar and provide stability. After assuming this position:
Step 1
Breathe out and pull your feet off the ground. Make sure that your legs stay straight as you lift them outward. You can bend your pelvis backward slightly. You can also engage your hip flexors and abdominals to help with the lifting.
Step 2
You should lift your legs to a height that is challenging but still allows you to maintain your form. Your goal should be to get them parallel to the ground or a bit higher than that. In such a position your hips would be at a 90-degree angle.
Step 3
Breathe in and slowly lower your legs back down to the initial position. Try and hold on to your pelvic bend until the end of the movement.
Common Mistakes During Hanging Leg Raises
There are a few common mistakes that you need to be careful about when performing Hanging Leg Raises.
Hold your Control
The key to perfecting this exercise is that you have to hold on to your control throughout. From the start when you hold the bar with an overhand grip to the end when you return to this position you have to be in control.
Use Abs, Not Momentum
A common mistake is that you swing your legs upwards and downwards. You make use of momentum instead of your abs to aid you in lifting your feet up. This makes the exercise redundant as it does not allow the muscles to be targeted. So, remember to not use the momentum.
Letting Gravity Take Over
Another mistake in this exercise is that you let your feet fall down very fast after the pull-up. If you do this, you’re not letting your ab work on it. This reduces the benefits of the exercise in the second part of the workout.
Some other mistakes involve bending the knees or the elbows or leaning and arching at the spine.
This exercise is a difficult one to perfect so your form will most likely shake at a beginner level. But, it is important that you try and hold on to it for as long as possible. With time, you will be able to perfect this exercise with the perfect form.