Side Plank Leg Lift
Strengthen your obliques, glutes, and hips with the Side Plank Leg Lift. This challenging bodyweight exercise improves core stability and hip abduction.
Description
This exercise involves maintaining a side plank position while performing a leg lift to engage core and glute muscles.
How to Do Side Plank Leg Lift
- 1Setup
Lie on your side, propped up on your forearm with your elbow directly under your shoulder. Stack your feet and hips, keeping your body in a straight line from head to heels.
- 2Setup
Engage your core and lift your hips off the floor, forming a straight line from your head through your heels. Ensure your supporting shoulder is stable and not shrugging.
- 3
Exhale as you slowly lift your top leg straight up towards the ceiling, maintaining a straight knee and keeping your hips stacked. Only lift as high as you can without tilting your pelvis.
- 4
Inhale as you slowly lower your top leg back down to meet your bottom leg, controlling the movement. Avoid letting your hips drop or rotate throughout the leg lift.
- 5
Complete all repetitions on one side before switching to the other side to ensure balanced muscle development.
Tips
- Focus on hip stability: Keep your hips perfectly stacked and avoid any rotation or tilting as you lift and lower your leg, ensuring maximum glute and oblique activation.
- Control the movement: Perform the leg lift slowly and deliberately, focusing on muscle engagement rather than momentum to increase time under tension.
- Maintain core engagement: Continuously brace your core and glutes to prevent your hips from sagging or shifting, which is key for spinal stability and oblique work.
- Breathing pattern: Exhale as you lift the leg to help engage your deep core muscles, and inhale as you lower it with control.
Common Mistakes
- ×Allowing hips to drop or rotate: Keep your core tight and hips stacked throughout the entire movement to prevent your body from losing its plank alignment and reduce effectiveness.
- ×Shrugging the supporting shoulder: Actively press down through your forearm and keep your shoulder away from your ear to maintain proper shoulder stability and avoid neck strain.
- ×Using momentum to lift the leg: Control the leg lift with your glute and hip abductor muscles, lifting only as high as you can without swinging or jerking.
Variations
Side Plank Pull
Strengthen your obliques and core with the Side Plank Pull. This bodyweight exercise targets waist stability and builds lateral core strength effectively.
Side Plank Bent Leg Lift
Strengthen your obliques, glutes, and hip abductors with the Side Plank Bent Leg Lift. This exercise builds core stability and improves hip strength.
Leg Extension Plank
Enhance core strength and stability with the Leg Extension Plank. This dynamic plank variation challenges your abdominal muscles and hip flexors as you
Side Plank Leg Lift (left)
Strengthen your obliques and hip abductors with the Side Plank Leg Lift. This bodyweight exercise enhances core stability and glute medius strength.
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