How many front lever raises should you do when you are new to the exercise?

Work in low reps with long rest: 4 to 5 sets of 3 to 5 at whichever tuck or single-leg progression you own, two minutes between sets, two or three times a week on a day your back is fresh. If only one clean rep is available at a given shape, do singles. A sloppy fourth rep teaches a bent-arm pattern you then have to undo.

How do I make the front lever raise easier or harder?

Easier: tuck the knees to the chest, then open to an advanced tuck, then extend one leg, then straddle. Slow negatives from the top and a band under the hips help at every step. Harder: straighten the legs fully, pause two to three seconds at horizontal, take four seconds to lower, or raise past horizontal toward an inverted hang. Add weight only once the straight-leg version is smooth.

What is the front lever raise good for?

It builds straight-arm pulling strength through the lats and lower traps plus serious anterior core control, and it carries into almost every advanced gymnastics pull. It is a poor choice as a general back builder, since rows and pull-ups deliver more muscle for far less skill investment, and a poor choice if your elbows or shoulders complain under straight-arm load.

Advanced

Front Lever Raise

Where the hold builds static strength, the raise trains the lats to move the whole body through space with the arms locked, which carries over to nearly every advanced pulling skill. Because it is a pull-down at the shoulder rather than an elbow bend, it hammers the lats and lower traps in a way curls and rows never touch, while your core works overtime to keep the body rigid. Scale it with a tuck or one-leg shape until you can raise into a full lever with straight legs.

Equipment: Pull-Up Bar
Body part: Abs, Back
Type: Strength
Browse by muscle: Latissimus Dorsi
Browse by movement: Core Brace, Vertical Pull

How to do it

1
Hang from a bar with straight arms and a shoulder-width overhand grip.
2
Set your scapulae down and back and brace your abs and glutes to lock the body into a plank.
3
Keeping the elbows fully locked, pull the bar down toward your thighs and lift your legs and hips as one unit.
4
Rise until your body is horizontal and parallel to the floor, holding the line for a beat.
5
Reverse the path slowly, resisting the drop, until you return to a dead hang without arching.

Tips

Drive the effort through the straight arms; if the elbows bend you have turned it into a bent-arm pull.
Keep a hard posterior pelvic tilt so the movement travels through your shoulders, not a sagging lower back.
Regress to a tuck or single-leg lever raise, and only chase the full straddle or straight-leg version once the tuck is smooth.

Variations

Common mistakes

Every rep starts with a small swing out of the hang, so momentum rather than the lats gets the body moving; hang dead still for a second and start the raise from nothing.
The hips lead and the feet trail, folding the body into a shallow pike that never reaches horizontal; shins, hips and shoulders should arrive level at the same moment.
The descent gets given away in half a second, and that lowering is the most useful part of the rep for building the position. Take three seconds to return to the hang.
Shoulders creep toward the ears at the bottom of each rep, which unloads the lats and leaves the hang on passive tissue; keep them pulled down even between reps.
Reps get chased before a single clean one exists. If you cannot hold the top for two or three seconds, build that hold first and the raises will come.

Frequently asked

How many front lever raises should you do when you are new to the exercise?: Work in low reps with long rest: 4 to 5 sets of 3 to 5 at whichever tuck or single-leg progression you own, two minutes between sets, two or three times a week on a day your back is fresh. If only one clean rep is available at a given shape, do singles. A sloppy fourth rep teaches a bent-arm pattern you then have to undo.
How do I make the front lever raise easier or harder?: Easier: tuck the knees to the chest, then open to an advanced tuck, then extend one leg, then straddle. Slow negatives from the top and a band under the hips help at every step. Harder: straighten the legs fully, pause two to three seconds at horizontal, take four seconds to lower, or raise past horizontal toward an inverted hang. Add weight only once the straight-leg version is smooth.
What is the front lever raise good for?: It builds straight-arm pulling strength through the lats and lower traps plus serious anterior core control, and it carries into almost every advanced gymnastics pull. It is a poor choice as a general back builder, since rows and pull-ups deliver more muscle for far less skill investment, and a poor choice if your elbows or shoulders complain under straight-arm load.

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