Home / Exercises / Hanging Straight Leg Hip Raise
Hanging Straight Leg Hip Raise animation

How to do the Hanging Straight Leg Hip Raise

CoreAbsBodyweightIntermediate

The hanging straight leg hip raise is one of the most demanding bodyweight core exercises you can do, requiring both serious abdominal strength and full-body tension to execute correctly. Master this movement and you build the kind of deep, functional core strength that transfers to every athletic challenge you face.

Add this to my personalized plan →

Muscles worked

Primary
AbdominalsObliques
Secondary
Hip flexorsLower back

Step-by-step

  1. Hang from a bar with a shoulder-width grip, arms fully extended, and body completely still before you begin the movement.
  2. Brace your entire core hard, posteriorly tilt your pelvis, and initiate the lift by driving your hips up rather than just swinging your legs forward.
  3. Raise both straight legs together until they are parallel to the floor or higher, keeping the knees locked and feet together throughout.
  4. Lower your legs slowly and under full control back to the dead hang position, resisting gravity on every inch of the descent.

Common mistakes

  • Using momentum and swinging the legs up instead of lifting from the abs — pause completely at the bottom of each rep to eliminate swing and force genuine muscular initiation.
  • Bending the knees as the legs get heavy, which dramatically reduces the lever arm and cheats the abs out of the workload — keep knees locked even if it means reducing your range of motion temporarily.
  • Letting the shoulders shrug up toward the ears during the hold, which shifts tension to the traps and destabilizes the movement — actively depress and pack your shoulder blades down before and during every rep.

Pro tip — Focus on tilting your pelvis posteriorly before the legs move — this pre-loads the lower abs and prevents the hip flexors from dominating the lift, which is the single difference between an exercise that sculpts your core and one that just fatigues your hips.

Sets & reps by goal

Build muscle3–4 sets × 10–15 reps
Get stronger3–4 sets × 6–8 reps
Lose fat / tone3 sets × 12–20 reps

Rest: 60–90 sec between sets.

More Core exercises

3 4 Sit Up3 4 Sit UpAir BikeAir BikeBarbell Seated TwistBarbell Seated TwistBarbell Side Bent IIBarbell Side Bent IIBarbell Standing TwistBarbell Standing TwistBarbell Stiff Leg Good MorningBarbell Stiff Leg Good Morning
Want this built into a full plan?2fit4u turns moves like this into your personalized weekly program — free to start.
Build my free plan →