Hanging Leg Raise: How to Do It, Muscles Worked and Benefits

The hanging leg raise is the exercise where you hang from a bar and lift your legs. It looks simple, it is anything but, and it is one of the best core exercises in existence when you do it properly. The problem is that almost everyone does it as a hip flexor exercise by accident. The difference between a hanging leg raise that builds your abs and one that just tires out the front of your hips comes down to a single detail most people never get told about. Here is the whole thing.

How to do a hanging leg raise

You need something solid to hang from. A pull up bar is the usual choice, and it wants to be high enough that your feet clear the floor with your legs straight.

1. Get a good grip and hang. Grab the bar slightly wider than shoulder width with an overhand grip. Hang with your arms straight but your shoulders active, meaning pull your shoulder blades down slightly rather than letting your body sag into your joints.
2. Kill the swing before you start. Squeeze your glutes, point your toes slightly and tense your whole body. You want to hang dead still. Any swing at the start will only get worse.
3. Brace and initiate. Breathe out and pull your ribs down towards your hips. The movement starts from your core, not your legs.
4. Raise your legs. Lift your legs up in front of you, keeping them as straight as your hamstrings allow. Keep going up towards 90 degrees.
5. Curl your pelvis. This is the step that matters. At 90 degrees, do not stop. Keep pulling and tilt your pelvis up and back towards your ribcage, so your hips curl slightly off the vertical line of your body. This is where your abs actually shorten and do their job.
6. Lower under control. Take two or three seconds to come back down. Do not just drop. Stop before your body starts to swing, then start the next rep from stillness.

Muscles worked

• Rectus abdominis. The main target, and specifically the lower portion, though the whole muscle contracts. It does the pelvic curl at the top of the rep and controls the descent.
• Obliques. Working to stop you twisting and swaying, and doing more if you add any rotation.
• Hip flexors, including the rectus femoris. Genuinely and unavoidably involved. They lift your legs to 90 degrees. Research measuring leg raises found substantial activity in both the rectus abdominis and the rectus femoris, and the balance between them shifts depending on how you perform the rep (rectus abdominis and rectus femoris activity during leg raises). This is why the exercise feels the way it does, and why the pelvic tilt matters so much for tipping the balance towards your abs.
• Lats and shoulders. Working isometrically to keep you stable and stop you swinging.
• Grip and forearms. Often the first thing to fail. That is a training effect in itself, but it can cut your sets short.

Hanging and captain's chair leg raise variations tend to sit near the top of the rankings when researchers compare abdominal exercises by muscle activity, comfortably ahead of the traditional crunch (EMG analysis of popular abdominal exercises).

Benefits

• It trains your abs through a long range. Unlike a plank, where your core holds a position, the hanging leg raise takes your abs through a full contraction under bodyweight load.
• It builds grip and shoulder stability for free. You cannot do it without hanging, so your grip, lats and shoulders get work every set. That carries over to pull ups, deadlifts and carries.
• It decompresses your spine. Hanging is a gentle traction for your back, which is a pleasant contrast to squats and deadlifts.
• It needs one piece of kit. A bar in a doorway is enough, which makes it ideal for home training. It also counts towards the muscle-strengthening work the NHS recommends on at least two days a week.
• It scales forever. From bent knee raises to straight leg raises to toes to bar to weighted versions, there is always a harder step.

Common mistakes

Never passing 90 degrees. The big one, covered above. No pelvic tilt, no meaningful ab work.

Swinging. Using momentum from a swing turns the exercise into a pendulum. If you are swinging, you are resting. Come to a dead stop between reps, even if it costs you reps.

Dropping the legs. The lowering phase is where a lot of the benefit lives. Fight it down for two or three seconds.

Holding your breath. Breathe out as you raise. Trying to brace against a held breath makes it much harder to curl your pelvis.

Shrugging into the bar. Letting your shoulders ride up by your ears puts strain on the joint and makes you unstable. Keep your shoulder blades gently pulled down.

Doing them fresh when your grip is fried. If you do them after heavy deadlifts or rows, your grip will quit before your abs. Do them earlier in the session, or use straps.

Variations

Work up this list in order. There is no shame in starting near the top.

• Hanging knee raise. Bend your knees and bring them to your chest, still curling your pelvis at the top. Much shorter lever, much easier, and the best place to learn the tilt.
• Captain's chair or dip station leg raise. Your forearms take your weight on the pads, which removes grip as a limiting factor and stops most swinging. A dip station or power tower covers this at home.
• Hanging leg raise with straps. Ab slings or lifting straps hold you up so you can focus purely on your core.
• Straight leg hanging raise. The standard version. Legs as straight as your hamstrings allow, feet up past 90, pelvis curled.
• Toes to bar. Keep curling until your feet touch the bar. Demands real hamstring flexibility and ab strength, and it is a genuine milestone.
• Weighted hanging leg raise. Hold a light dumbbell or medicine ball between your feet. Add weight only when your straight leg reps are clean and controlled.
• Hanging windscreen wipers. Raise your legs, then rotate them side to side. Very advanced, and hard on the lower back if you rush it.
• Ring or bar hangs with L-sit holds. Hold the top position for time instead of doing reps. Brutal, and great for building the strength to control the tilt. Gymnastic rings add a further stability challenge.

Sets and reps

• Building strength and muscle: 3 to 4 sets of 8 to 12 controlled reps, resting 60 to 90 seconds. Stop the set the moment you start swinging.
• Learning it: 3 sets of 8 hanging knee raises, focusing entirely on curling your pelvis at the top.
• Progression: when you can do 12 to 15 clean straight leg reps, make it harder rather than longer. Slow the lowering to four seconds, hold at the top, or add a light dumbbell between your feet.

Two or three sessions a week is enough. Put them near the start of your core work while you are fresh, and pair them with an anti-extension exercise like the ab roller or a plank variation for a complete core session.

Recommended reads

1. The best pull up bar in the UK
2. The best dip station in the UK
3. The best ab roller in the UK
4. Plank: how to do it and how long to hold
5. Chin ups: technique and progressions