4 months-20 hanging leg raises. Is that possible?

[Katharina Huemer]

hi, 

I really hope you can help me here! I am a girl from Austria, I am 20 years old and recently joined a gymnastics class. I have been doing ballett for years, so I am really flexible, but have huge lack in strength. I do not really focus on bars as my gym don't have bars and vaults, I just want to get good on floor! I am doing well, have my tucks, handsprings and twists, but I totally lack in ab strength. By February, I need to do 20 hanging leg raises all the way up to join the next level! I can do about 10-15 to an L-Hang position, but that's it. I am not able to do a full hanging leg raise
I have to admit that I have never really trained my abs before. I definietly need to start now and I am upset, cuz I don't know how! I have a pull up bar at home, so I could train everytime. 

I thought about a possible plan:

3 sets of 12 hanging knee raises
3 sets of 12 "half" hanging leg raises (to L-Hang position)
3 sets of 3 negative ones

I will do this everyday in addition to 8 hours of gymnastics a week.

I also want to care about my diet. I always ate halthy, but didn't watch my protein income etc. To support my muscle-growth, I want to cut down on white bread, fatty cheese and sugary cereals. 
My breakfast is usually oat flakes with low fat quark and fruit, my lunch is salad, quinoa, potatoes, fish, chicken, etc and for dinner I usually have vegetables and eggs, chicken or quark again. In between, I sometimes snack some fruit or a small chocolate bar or have a hot chocolate.
I also want my abs to be seen, my legs look very ripped, I don't know but I somehow don't gain fat there. But my tummy is kind of flabby. And I know that for a six-pack you shouldn't have too  much fat on top of the abs!

Puh, that's long! So all in all my questions are those:

1) Is it possible to get to 20 hanging leg raises in 4-5 months?
2) Which plan should I follow or is mine ok?
3) Is my explained diet supporting for my goal?
4) Will it also help to get my abs seen?

5) If yes, how long will it approx. take to getting visuable abs?

I am 20 years, 63,7 inches and weigh 110lbs. I guess my body fat percentage is about 18%!

I would really appreciate your help!

[Joseff Lea]

HI Kalinchen and welcome to the board! 

I don't know if it's possible for you to be able to do 20 in 5 months but you wont know unless you try. your plan neglects to train the rest of your core which could lead to stalling later on, foundation is a very complete training program for you to look into, especially if you're interested in gymnastics. 

Your workout plan might work, I really don't have enough experience on programming to make a very valid comment. I do know that hanging leg raises should be done on stall bars for maximum impact. If you're able to do back tucks it's been mentioned before that they work the core incredibly hard, so a few of those every workout might help.

Training everyday might bot be optimal for you but this is a see how you go thing, if you're making good progress then you're making progress and there's no need to change anything. If you're tired and feeling worn out workout to workout then you should probably back off a little. 

Diet if always found is best to keep simple, make sure you're getting plenty of vegetables, good quality meat and not too much junk and the rest takes care of it self. Yours seems pretty ok to me, I wouldn't worry about cutting out cheese (unless its very processed) but white bread and sugary cereals I would get rid of.  

Hanging leg raises will certainly give you good abs if you do them properly, however it depends on bf% as to how visible hey are. Personally I've gone from being a little podgy in the middle to fairly defined in about 2 months from changing my diet to the above alone.

Good luck!

[Karri Kytömaa]

With special focus on one move, I'd go with grease the groove method. 4-6 times a day do a single maximum set of negatives until able to do couple full reps and then proceed with doing those.

I assume your gymnastics class gives your core enough endurance work so gtg should take you a long way. 

[Connor Davies]

To get your feet to the bar you need a good amount of compression.  If you don't have good pike flexibility, you need to work on that as well as the strength aspect.

 

I would suggest you work V ups on the floor to begin with, along with your standard hanging leg raises.

 

A good intermediate between hanging leg raises to the L position and hanging leg raises to the bar is to do a knees to elbows raise, then straighten your legs at the top and do a straight leg negative.

[Christoph Pahl]

There's a huge difference between HLRs on stall bars and HLRs free hanging (which include lats quite a bit) - but she should certainly train for exactly her goal. Also her goal (very special) is completely different than the goal of foundation (wide basis), and I simply cannot imagine that foundation will give her goal in some months.

[Keilani Gutierrez]

a form check could help too cause a number of things could be occuring and the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

[Joseff Lea]

There's a huge difference between HLRs on stall bars and HLRs free hanging (which include lats quite a bit) - but she should certainly train for exactly her goal. Also her goal (very special) is completely different than the goal of foundation (wide basis), and I simply cannot imagine that foundation will give her goal in some months.

Good point, I did mean to say that foundation was a long term program and probably wouldn't be the fastest way to the goal, however it is best to address potential weaknesses sooner rather than later which will allow you to develop further and faster in the long term with less potential for injury