How to do a L Sit
Reviewed by Jim Parker, CPT, B.A. Kinesiology
Parallette Bars
Workouts with L Sit
Target muscles worked
Instructions for Proper Form
L Sit is a bodyweight exercise that primarily targets your core, but also engages your shoulders and triceps. By holding your legs straight out in front of you while seated, you force your core to stabilize your body in an L shape. This is a great exercise for building core strength, stability, and improving your overall body control. Performing this movement also requires significant shoulder and tricep strength to maintain the raised position.
- Sit tall on the ground with the parallettes running alongside your hips with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor.
- Grab ahold of the parallettes with flexed elbows so that your hands are just outside your hips.
- Extend your elbows to lift your hips off the floor and press through the parallettes to lengthen your head from your shoulders.
- Keeping your hips under your shoulders, lift one foot and then the other so that both feet are suspended above the ground before you extend your legs forward and point your toes.
- Hold for an allotted time.
Alternatives & Variations to L Sit
1. Hanging Leg Raise
60.2 mSCORESWAPPED 60 TIMESHanging Leg Raise is a bodyweight core exercise that primarily targets the abdominals and hip flexors. By hanging from a pull-up bar and raising your legs, you add instability, forcing greater muscle engagement. This is a more challenging variation than Vertical Knee Raises, increasing the demand on your core and possibly the quadriceps, providing excellent strength and muscle-conditioning benefits.
2. Leg Raise
96.5 mSCORESWAPPED 23 TIMESLeg Raise is a simple bodyweight core exercise that involves laying on the ground and suspending your legs in the air. While your core does play a significant role in raising your legs, the real benefit comes from controlling their descent back to the floor.
3. Plank
92.8 mSCORESWAPPED 22 TIMESPlanks are one of the most common core exercises out there. This is a bodyweight exercise that is performed for time rather than reps. Planks don’t require any movement, instead they force you to place yourself in a position that requires you to engage your core, and maintain that muscle activation for the duration of the exercise. This is a great way to help build strength and stability in a way that will translate to a variety of other exercises, and your daily life.
4. Ab Rollout
70.3 mSCORESWAPPED 18 TIMESAb Rollout is a compound exercise that primarily targets the core. Using an ab roller, this movement challenges your ability to maintain stability as you extend your body parallel to the ground. This exercise is great for developing core strength and stability, which can translate to better performance in other strength-training movements. The instability and range of motion make this a more challenging core exercise.
- Intermediate
- Abs
- Ab Wheel
5. Hanging Knee Raise
73.4 mSCORESWAPPED 15 TIMESHanging Knee Raise is a variation of Vertical Knee Raise. Like Vertical Knee Raise, this is a bodyweight core exercise that involves suspending yourself and raising your knees to your chest. By hanging from a pull up bar, you add more instability to the movement, which causes you to further recruit your core for stability.
6. Vertical Knee Raise
92 mSCORESWAPPED 14 TIMESVertical Knee Raise is a bodyweight core exercise that involves suspending yourself, and then engaging your core to raise your knees towards your chest. By keeping your torso upright, and raising your knees, this exercise is a bit better for building functional, real world strength.
7. Leg Pull-In
94.9 mSCORESWAPPED 13 TIMESLeg Pull in is a bodyweight exercise that targets your core. By raising your legs off the ground, you’re already engaging your core. Additionally your core helps to pull your legs in towards your chest.
8. Crunches
94 mSCORESWAPPED 13 TIMESCrunches are one of the most common exercises out there. It’s an easy to perform, bodyweight exercise that targets your abdominals. Crunches are very similar to Sit Ups, however, instead of raising your upper body all the way into a near sitting position, you only raise your shoulder blades off the ground. This is a great exercise for beginners looking to build core strength.
9. Flutter Kicks
88 mSCORESWAPPED 12 TIMESFlutter Kicks are a bodyweight core exercise that have you lay on a bench with your legs extended out over one end. This exercise is very similar to Scissor Kicks with the added benefit of having more room under your legs. This can give you a bit more range of motion as your leg descends.
10. Sit Up
93.8 mSCORESWAPPED 11 TIMESSit Up is one of the most common exercises out there. It’s a bodyweight exercise that targets your core. Sit Ups are very similar to Crunches, however, rather than raising just your shoulder blades off the ground, you raise your entire upper body. This gives you a bit more range of motion than Crunches, however you’ll start to lose some tension in your core at the top of the movement.