Hanging Leg raising has always been regarded as a classic action for training abdominal muscles. Many people in the gym also perform this action, which is very effective for abdominal muscle training!
But unfortunately, for most people, their hanging leg raises are wrong!
They hardly train the abdominal muscles effectively, but instead train our hip flexors!
As shown below:
This is a demonstration of how most people perform hanging leg lifts. They put their back against the backrest, then lift the legs back and forth, and put them down
This is actually a hip joint movement (hip flexion), and the main muscles involved are It’s not the six-pack abs you wish for but our hip flexor muscles (iliopsoas, rectus femoris, sartorius); the following muscle movement anatomy diagram demonstrates:
The rectus abdominis does not have the function of hip flexion, so it is not an active muscle!
Abdominal The rectus muscle has two main functions:
The lower fixation always makes the spine bend, and the upper fixation makes the pelvis tilt backward
So , in order To allow your abdominal muscles to better participate in the hanging leg raising movement, you need to add the backward tilt of the pelvis!
As shown in the figure below: The first half of the movement The first half (leg lift) is dominated by the hip flexor muscles, and the concentric contraction of the rectus abdominis in the second half causes the pelvis to tilt backward
This will train our hip flexors and rectus abdominis at the same time!
How to target the abdominal muscles instead of the hip flexors?
As shown below:
You need When doing hanging leg raises, fold your legs in advance, so that your hip flexor muscles are in a passive shortened state (reduced activity), and then perform a posterior pelvic tilt, which will allow your rectus abdominis to fully dominate The entire action