Toes-to-bar: strict or kipping, the progression, and what the studies measured

Toes-to-bar is the longest version of the hanging leg raise. You hang from a pull-up bar, curl your hips up and keep lifting until your feet touch the bar between your hands, then lower them. Done strict, the trunk and hips do all of it without swinging. Done kipping, a rhythmic swing from the shoulders and hips helps the legs up, which lets you string more reps together.

It needs a grip that can hold you, abs that can curl your hips up, and enough hamstring flexibility to bring straight legs that high. This page covers both versions, the progression, the faults, what the studies measured, and the sets.

How to do a strict toes-to-bar

1. Hang from the bar with an overhand grip about shoulder-width apart, arms straight, legs together and still.
2. Set your shoulders: pull them slightly down away from your ears and press the bar a little forward with straight arms.
3. Curl your hips up and raise your legs in front of you, keeping them as straight as you can.
4. Keep going past horizontal until your toes touch the bar between your hands. Your body rocks back slightly as you fold.
5. Lower slowly to a still hang. If you swing, stop and reset before the next rep.

These cues are practical, not study findings.

Kipping or strict

A kipping toes-to-bar uses a swing. From the hang, you push your chest through between your arms so your body arches, then pull back with straight arms and snap your hips and legs up toward the bar, using the swing back to start the next rep. It's a skill of its own, used when the goal is many reps.

In 12 young men who had been doing regular ab exercises for three months, each doing five reps of both versions in random order, the strict toes-to-bar produced significantly more rectus abdominis (front-ab) activity than the kipping version, about 15% more. The authors' reading is that the same exercise can work the same muscle differently depending on how it's done.¹

The practical reading: learn the strict version first, since the swing hides a weak curl, and add the kip later if you want reps.

What the hanging versions train

The toes-to-bar study above is the only one found for this page that tested the exercise by name. These studies measured its shorter version, the hanging leg raise, and like it they are short lab measurements of muscle activity, not changes over weeks.

• The hanging straight-leg raise. In 14 men comparing three exercises (the body saw, the hanging straight-leg raise and a walkout from a push-up), the hanging straight-leg raise was the biggest challenge to the abdominal wall, with front-ab activity above 130% of a maximal contraction and external-oblique activity at 88%.²
• Hanging by the hands among twelve exercises. In 20 physical education students, lifting the legs while hanging by the hands and the V-sit exercises produced significantly more lower front-ab activity than all the others, and the hanging leg lift was also among those with the most activity in the rectus femoris, a hip flexor on the front of the thigh.³
• The knee version. In 21 healthy men and women aged 23 to 43, a hanging knee-up with arm straps was among the exercises with the most activity in the front abs, the internal and external obliques and the lats.⁴

Read together: hanging and lifting the legs brought in the front abs, the obliques and the hip flexors hard in these small studies, and in the one toes-to-bar study, doing it without the swing asked more of the front abs. Toes-to-bar takes the legs higher than these studies did, so beyond the one strict-versus-kipping comparison, its own numbers aren't known.

The progression to toes-to-bar

1. Dead hang: hold a still hang for 30 seconds. How to do a pull-up covers the hang, and the forearm workout covers grip.
2. Hanging knee raise: bent knees up toward your chest, no swing.
3. Hanging leg raise: straight legs to horizontal or higher. Both are in the core workout.
4. Knees to elbows: knees bent, curling up until they touch your elbows.
5. Strict toes-to-bar, then the kipping version if you want it.

Move to the next step once 8 to 10 controlled reps of the current one come with a rep or two left. The steps and the numbers are practical, not tested.

The common faults, and a fix for each

• Swinging when you meant to go strict. Pause in the hang between reps until you're still.
• Bending the arms to pull yourself toward the bar. Keep them straight; the hips do the lifting.
• Knees bending to reach the bar. That's knees to elbows. If straight legs can't get there yet, stay a step back.
• Dropping the legs. Lower them under control; a fast drop starts the swing.

Toes-to-bar alternatives without a bar

No bar? The same curl-the-hips-up job can be done on the floor. The reverse crunch curls the hips up toward the chest, and V-ups lift straight legs and the trunk together. A captain's-chair knee raise, on the padded station some gyms have, is the supported version of the hanging knee raise.

Sets, reps and where they go

• Strict: two or three sets of 3 to 8 reps, each stopped a rep or two before your form breaks, with 60 to 90 seconds of rest.
• At the end of a session, after your main lifts, in the "curl forward" slot of the core workout, where it takes the hanging leg raise's place once you can do it.
• Progress one thing at a time. (Progressive overload covers the options.)

These numbers are practical, not from a study.

Common questions

Toes-to-bar or hanging leg raise?

The hanging leg raise stops around horizontal or a little higher; toes-to-bar keeps going until your feet touch the bar, so it's the harder, longer version. Learn the leg raise first.

Why does my grip give out first?

Hanging is a grip exercise too. Practise dead hangs, use the knee raise in arm straps while your grip catches up, and train it directly with the forearm workout.

What if my shoulders or back hurt?

If you have pain, an injury or a medical condition, a doctor or a physical therapist should set the limits before you train; this page is general guidance for healthy adults.

If you'd rather have the week planned

A skill like this is easy to describe; fitting the hangs, the steps and your pull-ups into the same week is the part a page can't do. Coaching is the version where your workouts live in Trainerize, built around the days and the equipment you actually have, and a weekly call looks at how the week went and sets the next one. Coaching for beginners explains how the first weeks work, and apply is the first step. Otherwise: at the end of your next pull day, do two sets of the hardest step you can do cleanly and write down the reps.