The leg raises exercise looks simple: lie down, keep your legs straight, raise them, and lower them again. But doing it well requires considerably more control than the movement suggests.
Leg raises primarily involve hip flexion while requiring the abdominal muscles to stabilize the pelvis and spine. The hip flexors—including the iliopsoas—work strongly, while the rectus abdominis and other core muscles help control pelvic position. Different variations can shift the challenge toward the core, hip flexors, grip, or overall stability. Verywell Fit
What Is the Leg Raises Exercise?
A leg raise is a bodyweight exercise in which you lift one or both legs while attempting to maintain a stable torso. The most familiar version is the lying leg raise, performed face-up on the floor.
There are several related variations:
- Lying straight-leg raises
- Single-leg raises
- Bent-knee leg raises
- Hanging knee raises
- Hanging leg raises
- Captain’s chair leg raises
- Side leg raises
These movements are not identical. For example, side leg raises primarily train the hip abductors, particularly the gluteus medius, whereas hanging and lying forward leg raises place much greater demands on the hip flexors and anterior core. Healthline
For someone specifically looking for an abdominal exercise, the standard lying leg raise is usually the most accessible place to begin.
What Muscles Do Leg Raises Work?
Leg raises are often described simply as a “lower abs exercise.” That description misses an important part of the movement.
Rectus Abdominis
The rectus abdominis is the long abdominal muscle running down the front of your torso. Its role during leg raises is especially important for controlling your pelvis and resisting excessive extension of the lower back.
The abs don’t directly lift your femur. Your hip flexors perform much of that job.
The abdominal challenge becomes more significant when you actively control pelvic position rather than simply swinging your legs up and down.
Hip Flexors
Your hip flexors are heavily involved because raising your thighs toward your torso is hip flexion.
Important muscles include the:
- Iliopsoas
- Rectus femoris
- Sartorius
- Tensor fasciae latae
- Pectineus
The iliopsoas is particularly important in drawing the thighs toward the trunk. Verywell Fit also identifies the sartorius and iliopsoas as major contributors during hanging leg raises. Verywell Fit
Obliques and Other Core Muscles
Your obliques and deeper trunk muscles contribute to stabilization. Their job is particularly noticeable when you’re trying to prevent your body from rotating, arching, or swinging.
Quadriceps
Keeping the knees straight requires the quadriceps to maintain knee extension.
This is one reason straight-leg raises are harder than bent-knee versions: a straight leg creates a longer lever.
How to Do Leg Raises Exercise Correctly
Good form matters more than seeing how close you can get your feet to the ceiling.
Step 1: Set Up
Lie face-up on an exercise mat.
Extend your legs and keep them together. Place your arms alongside your body with your palms facing downward.
If necessary, bend your knees slightly rather than forcing perfectly straight legs.
Step 2: Brace Your Core
Before moving your legs, tighten your abdominal muscles.
Think about keeping your rib cage controlled and avoiding an exaggerated arch in your lower back.
This setup is critical. If your pelvis and lumbar spine move excessively, the exercise can turn into uncontrolled hip flexion rather than purposeful core training.
Step 3: Raise Your Legs
Lift your legs slowly while keeping them together.
Don’t kick or use momentum.
Continue until you reach a comfortable position where you can maintain control.
Step 4: Lower Slowly
The lowering phase is where many people lose good form.
Lower your legs gradually instead of allowing gravity to pull them down.
Stop the descent if your lower back begins to arch excessively away from the floor.
Step 5: Repeat With Control
Return your legs upward and repeat.
A controlled repetition is more valuable than a larger range of motion performed with poor technique.
Healthline similarly recommends maintaining core engagement while lowering the leg and keeping the lower back controlled. Healthline
The Most Important Form Cue: Control Your Lower Back
Watch what happens to your lower back as your legs approach the floor.
If your back starts arching noticeably, you’ve probably reached the end of the range you can currently control.
You don’t need to lower your heels all the way to the floor.
Instead, stop just before you lose pelvic and spinal control, then raise your legs again.
As your core strength improves, you may gradually become comfortable with a greater range of motion.
Should Your Lower Back Stay Flat?
Don’t interpret “keep your back down” as a command to forcefully crush your spine into the floor throughout every repetition.
The practical objective is to avoid uncontrolled lumbar extension.
Your anatomy, mobility, strength, and exercise variation all affect how your back looks during the movement.
If you experience pain rather than ordinary muscular effort, stop the exercise and reassess your technique.
Leg Raises Exercise Benefits
Builds Core Control
One of the most useful aspects of leg raises is learning to maintain trunk position while your legs move.
That skill has applications beyond abdominal training because the core frequently has to stabilize your torso while your limbs produce movement.
Requires Minimal Equipment
The lying variation needs little more than floor space and, ideally, an exercise mat.
That makes it suitable for:
- Home workouts
- Gym routines
- Hotel workouts
- Bodyweight circuits
Easily Adjustable
You don’t need to add weight immediately to make leg raises easier or harder.
Changing knee position, range of motion, tempo, or body position can substantially alter the difficulty.
Trains the Hip Flexors
The hip flexors are active participants rather than muscles you need to somehow eliminate from the exercise.
Straight leg raises are also used as a hip-flexor strengthening movement in some exercise and rehabilitation contexts. Verywell Fit
Offers Several Progressions
A beginner can start with single-leg or bent-knee movements and eventually progress toward hanging straight-leg raises.
That gives the exercise considerable long-term versatility.
Do Leg Raises Really Work the Lower Abs?
This question needs some clarification.
There isn’t a separate “lower abdominal” muscle. The rectus abdominis is one continuous paired muscle running vertically along the front of the abdomen.
However, different exercises can create different sensations and mechanical demands.
During leg raises, the hip flexors produce much of the hip movement, while your abdominal muscles help stabilize and control the pelvis and trunk. Verywell Fit notes that supine leg-raising movements can involve the hip flexors substantially. Verywell Fit
So if you only swing your legs from the hips while allowing your pelvis and back to move freely, you may feel the hip flexors doing most of the work.
For more abdominal involvement, focus on controlled pelvic positioning and slow repetitions.
Common Leg Raise Mistakes
1. Arching the Lower Back
This usually happens near the bottom of the repetition.
Your legs descend farther than your current core strength can control, and your lower back begins lifting excessively.
Fix: Reduce your range of motion. Lower only as far as you can while maintaining control.
2. Using Momentum
Swinging makes the movement easier without necessarily making it more productive.
This problem becomes especially obvious during hanging leg raises. Men’s Health identifies excessive swinging as a common hanging leg raise error and recommends maintaining full-body tension. Men’s Health
Fix: Slow down. Pause briefly between repetitions if necessary.
3. Lowering Too Quickly
People often concentrate on lifting their legs and essentially drop them on the way down.
The controlled lowering phase is part of the exercise.
Fix: Take roughly two or three seconds to lower your legs if that helps you maintain control.
4. Forcing Straight Knees
Straight legs create a longer lever and therefore increase difficulty.
If keeping your legs completely straight destroys your form, bending your knees slightly is a sensible regression.
5. Going Too Low
Touching the floor isn’t automatically better.
Your usable range ends when you can no longer maintain the position you’re trying to train.
6. Holding Your Breath
Bracing doesn’t require you to stop breathing throughout the set.
Use steady, controlled breathing rather than turning every repetition into a prolonged breath hold.
Leg Raise Variations From Beginner to Advanced
The best variation is the one you can perform with control.
| Variation | Relative Difficulty | Main Challenge |
|---|---|---|
| Single-leg raise | Beginner | Hip flexion and basic core control |
| Bent-knee leg raise | Beginner | Core control with shorter lever |
| Lying straight-leg raise | Intermediate | Abs and hip flexors |
| Captain’s chair knee raise | Intermediate | Core and hip flexors |
| Hanging knee raise | Intermediate | Core, grip, shoulders |
| Hanging straight-leg raise | Advanced | Core, hip flexors, grip and body control |
Single-Leg Raise
Lie on your back with one knee bent and foot planted on the floor.
Keep the other leg straight and raise it gradually.
This variation reduces the load compared with raising both straight legs simultaneously and is often easier to control. A similar straight-leg raise is commonly used to train the hip flexors. Verywell Fit
Bent-Knee Leg Raise
Bend both knees before lifting.
Shortening the lever decreases the demand on your core and hip flexors, making this an effective stepping stone toward straight-leg raises.
Lying Straight-Leg Raise
This is the classic variation.
Keep your legs together, raise them under control, then lower them only as far as you can without losing your trunk position.
Captain’s Chair Leg Raise
Support your forearms on a captain’s chair while allowing your legs to hang.
From there, lift your knees or straight legs.
The captain’s chair version works the abs and hip flexors while removing grip strength as a major limiting factor compared with hanging from a bar. Verywell Fit
Hanging Knee Raise
Grip a secure pull-up bar and hang with your body controlled.
Raise your knees toward your torso without swinging, then lower them slowly.
Hanging knee raises also challenge your forearms and grip because you must support your body throughout the set. Healthline
Hanging Leg Raise
Once hanging knee raises become manageable, straightening the legs significantly increases the challenge.
Start from a stable hang with your shoulders active and core engaged. Raise your legs without generating momentum, then lower them slowly.
Current coaching guidance for hanging leg raises emphasizes maintaining upper-body tension, engaging the abs and glutes, and avoiding a passive dead hang followed by a swing. Men’s Health
Lying Leg Raises vs. Hanging Leg Raises
Both exercises involve leg raising, but their overall demands are different.
Lying leg raises provide support from the floor, allowing you to concentrate on abdominal and pelvic control without worrying about grip strength.
Hanging leg raises require you to support your entire body from a bar. Your grip, shoulders, lats, and upper back therefore contribute to maintaining position.
The hanging version also makes swinging a major concern.
For most beginners, mastering the floor variation before progressing to hanging leg raises makes sense.
How Many Leg Raises Should You Do?
There isn’t one perfect repetition count for everyone.
For general core training, a practical starting point is:
Beginners: 2–3 sets of 6–10 controlled repetitions.
Intermediate: 2–4 sets of 8–15 repetitions.
Advanced: Choose a harder variation instead of endlessly adding repetitions.
For advanced hanging leg raises, Men’s Health suggests three sets of 8–12 repetitions while prioritizing full-body tension and control. Men’s Health
The important word is controlled.
If your lower back starts arching, your knees bend unintentionally, or you’re swinging to finish repetitions, the set has probably gone far enough.
How Often Can You Do Leg Raises?
Leg raises can fit into a broader core-training program rather than becoming the only abdominal movement you perform.
For many recreational exercisers, including them two or three times per week can provide plenty of practice while allowing recovery between harder sessions.
Training frequency should still reflect your overall program, exercise difficulty, recovery, and training experience.
You also don’t need hundreds of daily leg raises to develop a stronger core.
Progressively improving technique and difficulty is usually more useful than accumulating sloppy repetitions.
How to Make Leg Raises Easier
If standard straight-leg raises are too difficult, don’t fight through poor form.
Instead:
- Bend your knees.
- Raise one leg at a time.
- Reduce the lowering range.
- Keep the legs higher above the floor.
- Perform fewer repetitions.
- Move slowly.
- Rest longer between sets.
Reducing how far you raise or lower the leg is also a straightforward modification for people developing strength. Verywell Fit
A regression isn’t a failed version of the exercise. It’s a way of matching the exercise to your current ability.
How to Make Leg Raises Harder
Once you can perform clean repetitions, progression can come from increasing mechanical difficulty rather than simply doing more reps.
Try:
- Slowing the lowering phase.
- Pausing near the bottom.
- Increasing your controlled range of motion.
- Progressing from bent to straight legs.
- Moving from lying raises to hanging knee raises.
- Progressing to hanging straight-leg raises.
You can also introduce more advanced variations, but control should remain the priority.
Adding difficulty while losing technique defeats the purpose.
Why Do I Feel Leg Raises in My Hip Flexors?
Because your hip flexors are supposed to work.
Raising your legs toward your torso requires hip flexion, and muscles such as the iliopsoas play a major role in producing that movement. Verywell Fit
Feeling your hip flexors doesn’t automatically mean you’re performing the exercise incorrectly.
The issue is whether you’re also maintaining appropriate core control.
If your pelvis tips forward dramatically and your lower back arches as your legs descend, reduce the range or switch to an easier variation.
Why Does My Lower Back Hurt During Leg Raises?
Leg raises shouldn’t produce sharp or persistent lower-back pain.
One common technique problem occurs when someone lowers the legs beyond the range their trunk can control. As the legs descend, the pelvis may tilt and the lumbar spine may extend excessively.
Try bending your knees and reducing the range of motion.
If discomfort continues despite changing your technique—or if you already have a back injury or medical condition—stop the exercise and seek individualized guidance from an appropriate healthcare or exercise professional.
Can Leg Raises Give You Visible Abs?
Leg raises can strengthen muscles involved in your core, but no single abdominal exercise guarantees visible abs.
Abdominal appearance is influenced by several factors, including muscle development and the amount and distribution of body fat.
Leg raises should therefore be viewed as a strength and control exercise, not a spot-reduction method for belly fat.
A balanced fitness program generally combines resistance training, appropriate cardiovascular activity, nutrition, sleep, and recovery.
Where Should Leg Raises Fit in a Workout?
You can place them in a dedicated core workout or use them as an accessory movement after your main strength exercises.
A simple progression could look like this:
Beginner: bent-knee raises → single-leg straight raises → two-leg raises.
Intermediate: controlled lying leg raises → captain’s chair knee raises → hanging knee raises.
Advanced: hanging knee raises → hanging straight-leg raises with strict control.
Don’t rush from one level to another.
Progress when you can perform your current variation through a useful range of motion without momentum or excessive lower-back movement.
Leg Raises Exercise: Final Takeaway
The leg raises exercise is a useful bodyweight movement for developing hip-flexor strength and improving your ability to stabilize the pelvis and trunk while your legs move.
The key isn’t raising your legs as high or lowering them as close to the floor as possible. It’s maintaining control. Start with a variation that matches your current strength, keep the movement deliberate, and progress only when you can complete your repetitions without swinging or losing your lower-back position.
