What muscles does an L-sit work?

Your triceps hold the elbows locked, the muscles that pull your shoulder blades down hold you off the floor, your hip flexors hold your legs out, and your abs hold your pelvis so your back stays flat. All of it is holding rather than lifting, so no single muscle is the one doing it.

Why can I not lift myself off the floor in an L-sit?

Usually because your shoulders are not traveling down. Your arms are a fixed length, so the only way your hips rise is if your shoulder blades pull down and your torso comes up between your arms. Practice that press with your legs still on the ground.

Is the L-sit an abs exercise?

Partly. Your abs hold your pelvis and keep your back from arching, which is genuine work. They cannot be what holds your legs up, since the muscle does not cross the hip. Calling it an abs exercise oversells one of four jobs.

Are parallettes cheating for L-sits?

No, they change the geometry. Raising your hands means your legs clear the floor with less shoulder travel and less hip bend. If your arms are short relative to your torso, they may be the only version available to you, and it is still the same exercise.

Do I need flexible hamstrings for an L-sit?

It helps, and it is not usually the thing stopping you. Tight hamstrings make holding the legs straight harder. Not being able to press your shoulders down is what keeps most people on the floor in the first place.

How do I progress an L-sit?

Start with a tuck sit, knees drawn to your chest. Then one leg straight, then both slightly bent, then the full shape. Change one thing at a time and keep the shoulders down throughout.

Back to the library

Bodyweight · advanced · waist

L-sit hold

Also called L sit, L-hold, Floor L-sit.

The short answer

An L-sit presses your whole body off the floor on your hands with your legs held straight out in front, making an L shape. Four things happen at once and none of them moves: your triceps hold your elbows locked, the muscles that pull your shoulder blades down hold you clear of the floor, your hip flexors hold your legs up, and your abs hold your pelvis so your back does not arch. It is listed under abs, and being honest about it, this position does not have a single muscle you could call the one doing the work.

How to do it

Step oneSit on the floor with your legs extended straight in front of you.
Step twoPlace your hands flat on the floor beside your hips, fingers pointing forward.
Step threePress through your palms to lift your entire body off the floor, keeping your legs straight and parallel to the ground.
Step fourHold the L-shape position for as long as possible, engaging your abs and keeping your back straight.
Step fiveSlowly lower back down to the floor and rest before repeating.

What usually goes wrong

Each starts with what you would notice.

You press as hard as you can and your backside stays on the floor.

WhyAlmost nobody expects this one. The gap between your hands and the floor is fixed by the length of your arms, so how high your hips can get depends on how far you can push your shoulders down away from your ears. Straightening your elbows alone does not lift you; the shoulders have to travel.

FixSit tall with your hands beside your hips and practice pushing the floor away until your shoulders drop and your torso rises, without trying to lift your legs at all. That press is the part most people never train. Once it works, add the legs.

Your shoulders end up somewhere near your ears.

WhyThe same problem from the other end. When the shoulder blades slide up, your torso sinks between your arms and the height you just gained is given straight back.

FixHold your shoulders pulled down and your chest tall for the whole hold, and treat losing that as the end of the set rather than something to endure. Filming one attempt from the side settles it in about ten seconds.

Your legs sag toward the floor or your knees creep into a bend.

WhyYour hip flexors are holding the whole weight of your legs out in front of you at their longest, and they let go before your arms do.

FixBend the knees deliberately and hold a tuck instead, then straighten one leg at a time as it gets easier. A clean tuck sit is a real hold. A drooping L is not.

Your back rounds hard and you feel folded in half.

WhyThe legs are being lifted by curling the whole trunk toward them rather than by holding the hips. It works, briefly, and it is not the position.

FixSit up through your chest and think about pushing your heels away from you rather than up. If the shape only holds when you round, the hold is beyond you today and a tuck is what to do instead.

Floor or parallettes

Doing an L-sit on two low bars is far easier than doing it on the floor, and it is worth knowing exactly what gets easier, because it is not effort.

Parallettes raise your hands several inches. Everything above them rises with them, so your legs clear the ground while your shoulders travel less and your hips bend less. Both of the things that stop most people are reduced at once.

This is geometry, not cheating. If your arms are short relative to your torso, the floor version may simply not be available to you yet no matter how strong you get, and parallettes are the version of the exercise you can actually train.

The floor version stays as a goal if you want it. Just know that the difference between the two is mostly a few inches of height rather than a difference in how hard you are working.

Tuck sit or full L-sit

The tuck sit is the same press with your knees drawn in toward your chest, and it is the sensible starting point rather than a lesser exercise.

Bending the knees pulls the weight of your legs in close to your hips, so your hip flexors have far less to hold. It also means your feet do not need to clear as much floor, which removes the second constraint at the same time.

From there the useful path is one change at a time. Tuck, then one leg straight and one tucked, then both straight but slightly bent, then the full shape. What you should not do is hold a sagging L and call it progress, because the sag is the exercise having already ended.

Which muscle is this actually for

Most listings tell you the L-sit is an abs exercise. We are not going to, because the position genuinely does not work that way and pretending otherwise sends people off to train the wrong thing.

Nothing in an L-sit moves. There is no muscle shortening, no joint traveling, and so no muscle that is producing the movement, because there is no movement. What there is instead is four jobs happening at the same time: elbows held straight, shoulders held down, legs held up, pelvis held still. Take away any one of them and you are on the floor.

One thing is settled and worth carrying. The abdominal muscle down the front of your stomach attaches at your pubic bone and does not reach the hip, so it cannot be the muscle holding your legs out in front of you. That job belongs to your hip flexors. The abdominal job here is holding your pelvis and ribs so your back does not arch, which is real work and is a different job.

The practical consequence: if you cannot do an L-sit, more abdominal training is probably not the answer. Almost everyone is stopped by not being able to push their shoulders far enough down to leave the floor, and that is trained by practicing the press itself.

No study measures this position by name, so anyone giving you a percentage breakdown of what it recruits has made it up. What we can tell you is what has to happen for your body to be off the ground, and that is enough to train it.

What it is for

The L-sit hold is an advanced bodyweight isometric exercise targeting the abs, with secondary engagement of the hip flexors, upper arms, and shoulders. It involves suspending the body off the floor in an L-shape by pressing through the hands, requiring tremendous core compression and upper body pressing strength.

Questions people ask

What muscles does an L-sit work?: Your triceps hold the elbows locked, the muscles that pull your shoulder blades down hold you off the floor, your hip flexors hold your legs out, and your abs hold your pelvis so your back stays flat. All of it is holding rather than lifting, so no single muscle is the one doing it.
Why can I not lift myself off the floor in an L-sit?: Usually because your shoulders are not traveling down. Your arms are a fixed length, so the only way your hips rise is if your shoulder blades pull down and your torso comes up between your arms. Practice that press with your legs still on the ground.
Is the L-sit an abs exercise?: Partly. Your abs hold your pelvis and keep your back from arching, which is genuine work. They cannot be what holds your legs up, since the muscle does not cross the hip. Calling it an abs exercise oversells one of four jobs.
Are parallettes cheating for L-sits?: No, they change the geometry. Raising your hands means your legs clear the floor with less shoulder travel and less hip bend. If your arms are short relative to your torso, they may be the only version available to you, and it is still the same exercise.
Do I need flexible hamstrings for an L-sit?: It helps, and it is not usually the thing stopping you. Tight hamstrings make holding the legs straight harder. Not being able to press your shoulders down is what keeps most people on the floor in the first place.
How do I progress an L-sit?: Start with a tuck sit, knees drawn to your chest. Then one leg straight, then both slightly bent, then the full shape. Change one thing at a time and keep the shoulders down throughout.