I don't feel my abs in HLL

Hi,

I was just doing HLL and I noticed that I don't feel them in my abs at all, just my legs and weirdly in my chest when im doing HLL. I don't think my form is that bad, its just I though you were supposed to feel it in you core. Does anyone have any ideas of why I might not be feeling abs in HLL.

Thanks.

You feel exercises in the muscles that are most fatigued, which are not necessarily the same as the muscles most engaged. It just means that your abs are stronger or more efficient at that movement than your hip flexors or pectorals and lats.

It could also mean you're doing them off of a pull up bar with nothing behind you. Are you doing these on stall bars?

try doing these in a chin up grip, or a dislocated chin up grip.

ts00nami said:

try doing these in a chin up grip, or a dislocated chin up grip.

You mean in a german hang on the stall bars right? Thats my favorite way to do HLL.

if you aren't used to the active range of motion, there's a huge chance your hip flexors will be the ones suffering.

Intresting. I also had this when I started with HLL. And I do them on stall bars. Now that I can do series of 10-12(lift to L), I'm begining to feel the lower abs more, and the rest of the body, legs, forearms, and lats feel less tired, but not less than the abs yet tough. I guess with time things will adjust themselves.

I also feel a lot more stress on the legs while doing L-sit than in the abs...

Me too. I've noticed this comes from my lack of compression. I've gone back to the very first L sit progression and found that to be helping immensely with the compression. I've also found that as I try to do my HLL with my hips and lower back as close to the bars as possible that my abs work more, because at the top I am curling a lot at the waist instead of lifting with my other muscles.

No I do not do them on stall bars, I've been using a pull up bar for it but it doesn't matter what grip I use its just my legs and chest.

Just make sure you always have a pause at the top with your feet touching the bar, if you shins or whatever are what touches the bar you have improper form, if you hooked your feet they should be able to go under the bar and hit the wall behind you.

Edit for Cody Clark;

Do them in a german hang on the bar, you cant use your upper body at all like that. Or do them with only 1 arm on the bar, you will struggle to pull your body up into an advantageous position with your lats, but unless you are very strong you wont get very far and will have to do almost all the work with your abs.

If you're not doing them on stall bars you're probably using your lats too much.

Cody Clark said:

No I do not do them on stall bars, I've been using a pull up bar for it but it doesn't matter what grip I use its just my legs and chest.

I've never tried this in a German hang, but it's worth checking out.

The reason you aren't feeling it is almost unavoidable: Because you're hanging on the bar with nothing behind you to keep your shoulders more or less under your hands, your body moves backwards and acts as a counter-weight, making the exercise very, very easy. MANY people think that HLL are not hard because of this, but that is simply poor execution of the exercise. If you get someone to push on your shoulders from behind so that you're forced to keep your shoulders under the hands, you'll find that this all of a sudden gets much more difficult.

I tried them with someone pushing on my shoulders from behind ad there really wasn't that much of a difference maybe I should do more reps with it.

Did you try changing grips as people suggested?

It may be too easy.

Try the HLL from L to V-hang (toes to bar).

Or try slightly piking your hips from the beginning as you may be arching your back at the initiation of the HLL.

It took me a while to learn not to pull with my upper body and just do these with my core, but that makes a world of difference. I can do HLL fairly easily if I pull a bit with my arms, but I can't even come close to one clean rep when I try to just use my core. Just lifting to an L for 5 reps is a reasonable challenge. HLL are as much active flexibility as strength.

Cody might just be really flexible and reasonably strong in this movement. I can't say without watching a video. If he is, that's awesome for him!

I still haven't learned not to pull with my lats. I find that dropping an arm, or german hanging totally removes the problem, whereas using an under grip is only slightly better than an over grip. This is on rings BTW.

Interestingly, the HeS RLL and the fascial stretching that I still occasionally engage in both help me to dissociate my arms from my core.

Damn how can you do a HLL from a german hang? Just thinking of it makes my shoulders and elbows hurt...

Probably best to get the hang down first. Especially if you feel it in your elbows and shoulders really feel it. 3x30s should do it.