My L-seat is killing me!

[Victor Putz]

I've been doing mock-CF scaled workouts in my dorm room since I haven't any proper gym facilities and it's a lot more convenient even if I wind up subbing for a lot of items. For the warmup, I was trying to do "GHD situps" using my chair as a platform for my hips and wedging my legs (covered with a folded-up towel) under my desk, but that turned out to be 1) unstable, and 2) painful (the straightening of the legs during the 'up' movement wound up scraping my shins even through the towel).

So I thought I'd abandon that and instead use the "ab" phase of the warmup to work toward an L-seat. I worked up to a 1-minute "bent legs" sit, which gave me confidence to drop back down to, say, 30 seconds of a "one leg bent, one leg extended" seat (and incidentally, hooray for the speedbag.com interval timer, since I have a computer in the room...)

I tried it--and it hurt like hell! But not in my abs, where I was expecting it, but rather in what I assume is a hip flexor muscle just underneath my right "hip bone". It cramped up hard and I had to stop. I tried a dual-leg L-seat, and it gave about the same feeling in both flexors.

I think part of it is a flexibility problem (just sitting in the ground in an L-seat position is a pretty good stretch even without leaning forward), so I'm working on stretching more too. In the mean time, I'm still doing the "bent leg"-seat in the warmup, but with legs extended about 45 degrees.

I guess my question is this--what's the recommended progression for working toward the L-seat, and is this cramping pain fairly common?

[Derek Maffett]

The recommended progression is bent legs then slowly straighten them out. The cramps are fine, I get them too. Never heard anything bad about them, you just have to adapt.

Your idea of putting the bent leg L-sit in the warm-up sounds okay to me. That's actually what I do for dragon flags (believe it or not, they are more convenient for me than sit-ups!)

[Steven Low]

Cramps will go away as you do them more.

One way to help increase active flexibility and work towards L/V sit is to do a V-up on the floor (if you can or at least get as far as you can) and then plant your hands on the floor at about a 45 degree angle in front of you. Next, contract your abs and hip flexors as hard as you can and hold for as long as you can. It gives the feeling of holding an L or V position without having to hold yourself up.