DO YOU TRAIN HANGING LEG RAISES FOR STRONGER ABS OR STRONGER HIP FLEXORS?What about both?There are two ways to lift your legs.You can lift them by flexing at the hips while your pelvis stays relatively still.Your abs are still working to stabilize you, but your hip flexors are producing most of the visible movement.Or you can lift your legs and intentionally curl your pelvis toward your rib cage—like a reverse crunch.That curl changes the exercise.Your rectus abdominis runs between your pelvis and rib cage. If you want it to do more than stabilize, you need to create movement between those two points.“But I feel it in my abs!” you might say.Yeah, I know.Your abs have to work when you’re hanging or supporting yourself in a captain’s chair. You can’t remove them from the position.But feeling your abs does not automatically mean they are producing the movement you think they are producing.If your thighs move but your pelvis doesn’t, you are primarily performing hip flexion while your abs stabilize.If you curl your pelvis toward your rib cage, you are also training your abs dynamically.If you want to build thicker, denser abs, you need to change your perception of how you train them for muscle gain.Your abs are muscles too.They respond to hard training and progression just like your other muscle groups.This is why I want to share my favorite muscle-building exercises for abs and give you an actual workout plan—not just another routine based on doing hundreds of repetitions on the floor.High reps can build muscle when the repetitions are challenging enough.But doing hundreds of bicycle crunches because your abs burn does not automatically make it the best way to build them.Planks and stabilization exercises train your abdominal wall too. They teach your abs to resist movement, and that is valuable.But would you expect to maximize your quad development by only going for walks?That might be how your abs experience your current abdominal routine.They are working—but are you challenging them enough to make them grow?Imagine how many gym-rat stories I can share about how I trained my abs throughout nearly 30 years of consistent bodybuilding life.I did all that high-repetition work.Sometimes I didn’t perform hanging leg raises at all because I thought they were boring!I trained hard, but I didn’t build the abdominal strength and muscle mass I believe I could have built if I had understood how to train them better.Live and learn.Then train better.That is why I want you to film your hanging leg raises, reverse crunches, floor leg raises, knee tucks and captain’s-chair raises.Then watch your form.Don’t just watch how high your legs go.Watch what your pelvis does.Here are my coach questions for you:Are you intentionally curling your pelvis toward your rib cage when your goal is to build more muscle in your abs?If your pelvis remains still, are you actually training the exercise for hip-flexor strength while your abs stabilize?Can you control the movement without swinging or using momentum?If the exercise hurts your lower back, can you reduce the range, bend your knees or choose a more suitable progression instead of forcing a version you cannot control yet?WHY DO I DO THIS EXERCISE?It allows me to keep my reps lower while making every repetition extremely challenging.I can curl my pelvis with intention, control the lowering phase and progressively make the exercise harder.This exercise is very tough for me.Hence, I use it.