The resistance during the sitting leg raise typically comes from your own body weight, which means the exercise is easy to incorporate into both gym and home workouts. All you need is a chair or bench. The sitting leg raise helps develop strength in a commonly overlooked muscle in your core.
Performing Sitting Leg Raises Correctly
Sit on the edge of a bench and place your hands on the bench's edge, on either side of your hips. Lean back and raise your feet. Begin the exercise with your body in a fairly straight alignment, angled roughly 30 to 40 degrees relative to the floor. Lift your legs and bend your knees to bring your thighs toward your chest, which simultaneously bends forward. At the peak of your movement your torso should be vertical. Lean back again and extend your legs, without allowing your heels to touch the floor, to complete one repetition.
Muscles Worked During Sitting Leg Raises
Although you may think that the sitting leg raise works your abs, it actually develops the iliopsoas, which is your primary collection of hip flexor muscles. The iliopsoas pulls your upper legs up at the waist. Your other hip flexors -- including the tensor fasciae latae, pectineus, sartorius, adductor longus and adductor brevis -- contribute to lifting your upper legs. Because you don’t curl your spine forward during this exercise, your abs and obliques only work as stabilizers.
Making It More Challenging
If you find the sitting leg raise isn’t challenging enough, you can increase the load on your hip flexors by squeezing a weighted implement between your feet. You can use a medicine ball, dumbbell or a weight plate. If you have an exercise band, attach one end of the band to a low stable object and the other end to your feet. When you pull your legs toward your chest, the tension from the band offers resistance.
Benefits of Strengthening the Hip Flexors
The hip flexor muscles are often overlooked in strength training workouts, which can leave them weaker in comparison to the other muscles in the hips and core. Adequate hip flexor strength helps stabilize your pelvis and maintain proper hip movement. Underdeveloped hip flexors can adversely affect your walking and running gait and may prevent you from maintaining proper posture, which can lead to lower back pain.
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