Many strong athletes will find themselves discouraged when they try an L-Sit for the first time and they can't keep their legs up. The ability to perform this exercise eludes many people that don't train for it because it activates the abdominal muscles and hip flexors more than any other exercise and even requires significant triceps strength as one progresses closer to a V-Sit.
Here's a video of me doing a V-Sit, which is simply an L-Sit with the legs raised up even higher
Start out with a tucked L-Sit (just tuck your legs into your body instead of holding them out straight) and progress toward a normal L-Sit and then V-Sit. Eventually you could reach the most intense version of this skill, Manna:
Good luck with that one!
Happy Training,
Chris Moran. CSCS.
Watch those elbows. Do your best to keep them from flexing. Straight arms is where the posterior shoulder strength comes from when training towards the manna.
ReplyDeleteEqually important is to actually work on pushing the hips AWAY from the hands as opposed to simply bring the legs up. You aim to drive your hips forward and away form the hands while counteracting that with supertight compression in the abs to keep from falling forward.
From the L-sit to the V-sit you can get away with simply pulling the legs higher through stronger abdominal and hip flexion, but you won't be able to pass the V-sit into the manna without keeping those nice, straight arms and pushing hard to create distance between your hips and hands.
Still a sexy hold though :]