Calisthenics Core Workout: 3 Day Plan

About this plan

Three sessions a week that build toward the L-sit, with everything else arranged around getting you there.

Day one runs dead bugs, a twenty-second hollow hold, a fifteen-second L-sit, hip lifts, lying leg raises and jack planks. Day two turns to rotation — bent-leg wipers, straight-leg wipers, incline twisting sit-ups, decline reverse crunches, side planks and another L-sit. Day three is almost entirely hip flexion: bent-knee leg raises, hip lifts with head up, straight leg raises, alternating raises and hanging leg raises.

The L-sit is the thread. It appears on two of three days because it is the position that exposes everything at once — you need the abdominals to hold the pelvis, the hip flexors to hold the legs up, the triceps to lock the arms and the shoulders to depress. Fifteen seconds sounds trivial until you try it. Start with tucked knees on parallettes or two stacked books, then extend one leg, then both.

Notice how much of day three targets the iliopsoas rather than the rectus abdominis. That is the hip flexor, and it is doing most of the work in any straight-leg raise. This is not a mistake — the L-sit is largely a hip flexor hold — but it does mean day three will make the front of your hips sore in a way that crunches never do. Stretch them afterwards.

Wipers on day two are the hardest thing here for most people. Keep the shoulders pinned to the floor and lower only as far as you can control; the bent-leg version exists because the straight-leg one is an advanced movement.

One set per exercise, three days a week. This is skill work, and skill work responds to frequency and freshness rather than to volume.