sit ups upside down for active flexibility

[nospam]

i hope the exercise is clear but i will describe it a bit more detailed: Hang with your feet on a bar and pull reach for your toes. There are also sit up benchs on which you can fasten your feets and rise that side up to 90° as i have access to such a thing i wonder if it is worth to do sit ups for active flexibility.

my problem is that i can do hanging leg raised but when i do then i do not pike my legs but only pike them till i reach 90° and then move my hole body up thus i am not touching my toes when i reach the topm position and my feet are some inches away from my hands. i also can do them on a stall bar but there i use some momentum. but the real problem is that i can not do leg raises from L-sit. i can not move my feet an inch higher than L-sit position.

when doing the upside down sit ups described above i can touch my toes without weight but with 25lbs i can only get to my ankles i can get to the feet only when elevating the bench up to 80°.

can i conclude from that that i have unbalanced core (particular abs) strength? And that i can cure it with situps upside down?

[Blairbob]

Possibly weak or tight hip flexors besides poor pike flexibility.

Try to tuck your knees to your chest and then extend your toes to the top of the bar and do holds or negatives. Or you could do tuck up and extend.

Our stall bars seem to suck because I have been hearing a lot of complaints about them from people who have shoulder flexibility issues ( like a lack of it ). I think it's because of how the top bars are designed.

[braindx]

Do other active flexibility work.

1. Stretch your hamstrings for 30s

2. Arms straight, hands by your knees.

3. Pull your knees up to your face.

4. Hold 10s. If you feel lots of cramping you're doing it right.

5. Repeat 1-4 about 5 times.

If you can get your knees to you face for most of the sets, move your hands closer to your toes.