Leg Raises and L-sit – COMPLETE TUTORIAL
Your body and mind are more powerful than you can even imagine
Using only your muscles, you are able to perform a comprehensive and effective workout. How you ever hear about calisthenics? These are exercises consisting of a variety of gross motor movements including running, standing, grasping, pushing. You engage only your body mass. Thus, fancy equipment or a gym is not necessary to conduct the training. However, only when you do the exercises correctly, you can count on satisfactory results. Check out our complex tutorial and find out how to do leg raises and an l-sit without any damage?
Benefits of Leg Raises Exercise
The advantages of leg raises are numerous. They are easy to do, effective and challenging, as well. You don’t have to be a bodybuilding champion to do leg lifts. These exercises are a great way to target your lower abdominal muscles. Besides, the regular performance of straight leg raises allow you to strengthen the lower back and therefore avoid the risk of unpleasant injuries
If you spend most of your day a front of a computer you should quickly find out how to do leg lifts. The leg raises not only improve the strength but also increase flexibility in your hips and lower back. The leg raises exercise works your leg muscles as well as your butt and core muscles to give you comprehensive training.
These exercises will not affect your budget. Primarily, the straight leg raises can be performed everywhere. You don’t need fancy equipment or lengthy preparation. To perform the leg lifts you need only flat surface such as your living room floor, or a soft mat at the gym. If you experience lower back pain, you may want to pop a towel under your lower back area. Before you start your workout take five to 10 minutes to warm up. Remember always put safety first when exercising!
Lying Leg Raises
You are probably asking yourself the question “What are leg raises?” The answer is simple. Leg lifts are exercises which allow you to perfectly work out your abs. Keep in mind that during this exercise your legs are slightly activated. You can easily adjust the level of the difficulty and intensity to your physical condition. If you are wondering how lying leg raises, follow these easy steps to do it right.
Lie down on the floor, or the mat with your legs stretched out a front of you. You have to keep your hands down flat on the ground near your sides, with palms down. If you experience back pain, roll a towel and place it under your back, just above your hips. You can perform leg raises on a workout bench instead of on the floor; it will increase your range of motion and allow you to lift or lower your legs farther.
Next, bend your knees and raise your legs. Your toes should be pointed while doing exercises. Keep your thighs perpendicular to your body and your shins parallel. Contract your abdominals. This helps you to push your lower back into the floor. There should not be any gap between the floor and your back. This allows you to target your abs without hurting your spine. Keep your eyes and face directed at the ceiling. If you have a feeling that your head and neck are moving too much, lift your chin up a little.
Carefully straighten your legs and point your feet at the ceiling. Raise your legs and make sure that your lower back is in contact with the floor. In this way, you perform a precise workout, and you avoid injuries. Note if you can do the second step easily, skip it. Raise your legs without bending them and give yourself a harder workout.
Then, slowly lower your legs while keeping them straight. Bring them back as far as you can and keep your back flat against to floor. Your final aim is to reach about three centimeters off the floor. Try to hold your arms in the same place but when you lower your legs use your hands for support. If you feel that your back is arching up, don’t lower legs down too far. Repeating leg raises exercise regularly allows you to lower your feet closer to the floor using proper form.
Slow leg lifts down if the exercise is too easy for you. Lift your straightened legs up. Lower them down while counting to ten. This way of working out is a little bit challenging, but it guarantees ideal training for your abs. Repeat 3 sets of 10-20 leg lifts. When comes to straight leg raises forget about speed, during these exercises precision plays first fiddle.
Hanging Leg Raises
When you already know what leg lifts are, time to find out more about hanging leg raises. These exercises allow you to strengthen your abs significantly. Hanging leg raises will not build up your legs though. Whether you’re on the machine or you’re hanging from a pull-up bar with hanging leg raises you can prepare efficient training, but only when you do it correctly.
Do you know that most of the people do this exercise wrong? They start with legs hanging straight down then flex at their hips. Unfortunately, it will not make your abs strong and carved. It is just a hip flexor exercise.
When you perform hanging leg raises you must remember about a correct body posture. You have probably heard about the posterior pelvic tilt caused by muscle imbalances in the lower body. It can pull the pelvis down and under, flattening out the lumbar lordosis from the bottom. The posterior pelvic tilt can not only damage your posture, but it also leads to unbearable back pain and muscle imbalances severely lowering your capacity for functional movement.
The best way to reset your pelvis into a neutral position and treat the symptoms of posterior pelvic tilt is to stretch and lengthen the muscles that have become short and tight. You should also strengthen and coordinate the agonist and antagonist stabilizer muscles to eliminate imbalances causing a posterior pelvic tilt. Remember about training and improving neural control in functional movements to ingrain the proper patterns in the movement.
How to do Hanging Leg Raises
When comes to hanging leg raises, start with hanging from a pull-up bar with an overhand grip and hands roughly shoulder-width apart. Then, flex your hips and bend your knees while holding them above your hips a front of your torso. Carefully, roll your chest upwards and bring your knees toward your chin. Breathe in as you perform this movement and hold the contraction for a second or more. Reverse this move without letting your knees disconnect form the rest of your body.
Perform two sets of 10 repeats of the leg raising move. Next, do two sets of six to eight reps of the hanging single-leg raise. Rest for 30 seconds after each set. If you are advanced, you can do one set of 8 to 12 reps of each exercise before resting for 30 seconds.
If you want to see the satisfactory results of the hanging leg raises exercise, you have to avoid several mistakes. Remember, if you are just swinging your legs to get them up, then you’re not doing a true leg raise. First of all, get full control of your body. The primary goal is to slow lower your legs and gain complete control over your muscles. Actually, the lowering stage can be even more crucial that the lifting part
Don’t also forget about keeping your arms straight. This allows you to engage more of your upper-body muscles and further stabilize yourself and prevent any swinging. Pay attention to your elbows. They shouldn’t bend when you lift your legs up. If you want to get full activation of the abdominal area, the elbows have to stay still during the entire range of motion. Only in this way hanging leg raises will be done correctly.
How to L sit?
The L-sit, an acrobatic body position, in which you support the whole body on your hands, combines strength, power, and coordination. This kind of exercises requires regular practice and a bit of patience. Don’t worry! L-sit is entirely doable and achievable if you follow steps below.
Undoubtedly, L-sit is much more complicated than it looks. Most of the people try to just jump right into by throwing their legs out in front of them. Give yourself time and take a deeper look at the l-sit progression. By following these manageable steps, you will succeed.
First, sit on the floor in the piked position. Keep legs straight out in front of you. Put your hand on the floor next to your hips and straighten your arms. Remember to keep them locked up. Lift your bottom off the ground with your shoulders and drive your hands into the floor. Then, carefully tighten your core to lift your feet up off the floor. Try to keep your legs straight and point your toes to tighten up your legs. Next, bring your hips through your arms, slightly in front of your hands, to keep your feet up off the ground.
While doing L-sit, you have to master three elements. First of all, the shoulder mobility is essential. You have to be able to move your shoulders down to lift your body off the ground. Secondly, you need a strong core and hip flexion. These allow you to tighten up your body and lift your legs off the floor. Last, but not least, a solid back which let you maintain balance.
L-sit Progression Exercises
L-sit is engaging pretty much every part of your body. Some people struggle with the upper body strength and stability, while for other keeping the legs elevated and locked out is a big challenge. If you are founding l-sit too difficult, try the following exercises.
Start with Front Scale which simulates the quad and hip flexor positioning of the L-Sit in a standing position. Perform holds of 5-10 seconds on each leg for 3-5 sets.
Equally easy to do are Floor Supported Leg Lifts. While sitting on the floor, engage your shoulders and lift your butt off the floor. Then, one at the time, lift each leg slowly as high as possible and return to the ground. This exercise can be performed at home without any additional equipment.
Extremely helpful with reducing the lever is Tuck Sit. Start as if to try an L-sit, bring your heels up into your bottom and tuck your legs up. Return to a sitting position; bring your knees toward your chest, and your hands to your heels.
To strengthen your abs, check out Hanging Leg Raises. Use a pull-up bar or dip bars, lift both knees up to your chest and hold for 5 seconds. Do 10 reps for 3 sets. The biggest problem you probably face is stopping your body swinging around, but you will improve while practicing.
These L-Sit progression exercises bring you closer to your goal only when you will include them in your regular training.