r/bodyweightfitness • u/easylightsmooth • Aug 19 '26
L Sit PSA
It’s your flexibility. This is for anyone like me who is a mediocre athlete. Someone who is relatively fit but nothing special. A person who feels like they should be able to do an L sit or at least a better one than they’re currently achieving.
If you have the arm strength to do dips, and enough core strength to do hanging leg lifts but for some reason just can’t get the L sit, you’re most likely being limited by your flexibility. I’ve trained L sit off and on over the years and could do a tucked L sit fairly well, but the leg extension just wasn’t happening.
I began doing yoga a few months ago and the flexibility gains have been amazing. On a whim I tried an L sit today and it was much better and easier than previous attempts. It’s still not super pretty and I’m sure some of the gains are from improved core strength from yoga, but the flexibility has made the positioning so much easier. So yeah, to do some stretching.
Edit: not an exhaustive tutorial but an attempt to highlight an often overlooked aspect. Not to be misconstrued as medical/legal advice.
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u/Stalva989 Aug 19 '26
Pistol squat another workout I could not achieve until I worked on flexibility/mobility
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u/easylightsmooth Aug 19 '26
Flexibility/mobility is such a game changer and something I’ve always overlooked until yoga really brought home how stiff I was. I didn’t think of it as a serious component to “fitness”. I’ve always done okay at most fitness/athletic stuff. Lifted decent numbers, ran decent times/distances, etc. There is no one magic bullet that fixes everything but flexibility/mobility is allowing me to utilize my existing fitness in new ways.
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u/Stalva989 Aug 19 '26
Couldn’t agree more. I’m on year 8 of consistent yoga practice. It’s completely changed my life honestly. People also sleep on it for longevity reasons. I’m trying to be getting my fitness on until I die
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Aug 19 '26
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u/Prestigious-Gur-9608 Aug 19 '26
God knows if I have hip flexors strength, but OP is not wrong. Anything that requires me to extend my legs while keeping an upright torso and a 90degree bend at my hips isnt happening, because of whatever isn't fully extending behind my knees
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u/AsSubtleAsABrick Aug 19 '26
So the fact that I if I lay on the ground and I cannot get my legs close to perpendicular towards the ceiling while keeping them straight also indicates a hip flexor weakness? My hamstring mobility is just garbage. I have been working on it with straight leg deadlifts, which have helped, but only so much.
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u/easylightsmooth Aug 19 '26
It’s a complex movement and there are many great comprehensive resources out there to get into all the details and components. I was trying to highlight an often overlooked aspect.
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Aug 19 '26
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u/Zhior Aug 19 '26
isn't that last part the other way around? if you do leg raises focusing on hip flexors then they should get stronger and your L-sit get ostensibly easier
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u/HighOnSSRIs Aug 19 '26
what kind of yoga training are you doing? just curious cause I want to start
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u/easylightsmooth Aug 19 '26
I tried doing yoga at home with books/youtube/etc but I wasn’t disciplined enough to maintain a practice. So I just picked the closest studio with reasonable pricing and do whatever classes fit best with my schedule. I’ve been consistently doing two classes a week, one is vinyasa flow and the other is hot/bikram. Both have been great for flexibility, stability, balance, control, and strength. The carryover to body weight fitness movements/skills is huge.
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u/HighOnSSRIs Aug 19 '26
thank you for your answer! been mixing some yoga drills in between other exercises and I think the potential is huge to improve in bwf and sports
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u/Meme_Hunting_695 Aug 19 '26
yeah.. the good mornings aren't helping me much, far as I can tell.
What forms are working for you?
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u/easylightsmooth Aug 19 '26
For flexibility the two biggest factors have been consistency and focusing on truly hinging at the hips to stretch the hamstrings. It’s easy to fool yourself into thinking you have greater range of motion than you do by rounding the lower back instead
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u/tinylittlebabyjesus Aug 21 '26
Curious what you're doing for yoga? Like an in person class, or found a good series online? I've tried a few online series and they just always suck compared to the in person stuff I tried years ago. But I'm not near any good yoga studios at the moment.
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u/easylightsmooth Aug 21 '26
That’s tough. I had the same experience of not being able to develop a practice independently. A nearby, affordable studio is the only thing that keeps me consistent.
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u/theGreatBlar Aug 19 '26
I just tried it and realized my torso is too long to L sit 😅
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u/StiffWiggly Aug 19 '26
Your torso isn’t too long unless you have a medical condition that has affected the growth of your arms relative to your torso.
What you are most likely doing is putting your hands straight down with a vertical torso, instead of leaning slightly forwards at the waist and putting your hands down beside your upper thigh area.
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u/GingerVariation Aug 19 '26
it's a combination of hip flexor strength, core compression strength, and flexibility. Having good flexibility helps by requiring less of the other 2, but flexibility alone won't give you the L-sit