maratoolFlat Bench Leg Raises
How to do the flat bench leg raises
- Lie on a flat bench with your hands under your hips supporting your back.
- Your legs should be unsupported by the bench from below your knees.
- With your feet together and your toes flexed upwards, raise your straight legs up a few cm off the bench; both of your legs should have no contact with the bench. This is your starting position.
- Keep your legs straight with a slight bend in the knees and raise your legs to just before 90 degrees with your hips.
- Pause at the top and lower your legs in slow controlled manner back to the starting position.
- Repeat.
Muscles worked
The prime movers are the rectus abdominis and the obliques, which flex the trunk forward and resist it being pulled into extension or twisted out of line.
Every exercise for:Abdominals
How this movement works
Everything happens at one joint. That gives you direct control over where the tension sits; the trade-off is that the muscle gets no help, so the load that feels hard here is a fraction of what a multi-joint version of the pattern would take. Slow, complete repetitions beat heavy ones.
It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.
What you need
No equipment at all. The resistance is your own bodyweight, so you progress by changing leverage, range or tempo rather than by adding plates — and you can do it anywhere.
Every exercise using:Body only
These train the abdominals too, using equipment this one does not:
- Kettlebell Figure 8kettlebell
- Kneeling Cable Crunch With Alternating Oblique Twistscable
- Landmine 180'sbarbell
- Medicine Ball Full Twistmedicine ball
- Side Bend with Dumbbelldumbbell
Illustration: Everkinetic — CC BY-SA 4.0 — license. Modified versions are shared under the same license. Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.