Smith Machine Hip Raise

How to do it

1. Set the bar of a Smith machine at about knee height and lie on your back underneath it, head away from the bar.
2. Bend the knees and place the soles of the feet flat on the underside of the bar.
3. Unhook the bar by pressing it up with the legs, then hold it with the knees bent at ninety degrees.
4. Curl the hips up off the floor, pushing the bar up towards the ceiling with the feet.
5. Lower the hips back to the floor under control without letting the bar drop.
6. Rehook the bar at the end of the set by rotating it with the feet.

Common mistakes

• Straightening the legs to push the bar. The knees stay bent; the bar rises because the hips lift, not because the legs extend.
• Swinging the legs to get the hips up. The lift is a slow curl of the pelvis; momentum takes the abdominals out of it.
• Dropping the hips. The lowering is controlled; the hips touch down without a thud.
• Loading the bar heavily. The feet are holding it and the hips lifting it; a bar the legs cannot control is a bar that ends up on the shins.

Muscles worked

Primary

• Abs