Aye Aye, Captain! The Captain's Chair Ab Workout

The captain’s chair is one of the best ways to improve your core strength and get a tough ab workout in.

Are you the captain now?

You could be! Say hello to the captain’s chair and try out this captain’s chair workout to build abs that won’t get lost at sea.

What is the Captain’s Chair?

The captain’s chair was named one of the most effective abdominal exercises you can do to strengthen your abdominals by the American Council on Exercise.

The move was one of the key activators of both rectus abdominis and oblique muscles (more on these later).

This machine is composed of a stand-up frame with a padded backrest and two handles. Users grad the handles to support their own weight, while planting their backs against the padded area of the machine for support and stability.

Benefits of a Captain’s Chair Workout?

The captain's chair is a great way to perform your abdominal exercises upright while getting some support.

If you're working up to hanging ab exercise like a hanging windshield wiper or even a pull-up to work your abs, the captain's chair is a more accessible way to practice supporting your body weight.

Some benefits of the captain's chair include

Adaptability

The beauty of captain's chair exercises is that many of them can also be performed on the floor if you don't have access to the captain's chair. They can also be intensified. If you like performing these activities while hanging but manage to build more core strength, you can scale them up from a captain's chair to hanging off a pull-up bar. These will give you similar muscular activation but pull-up bars require you to use more core muscles for stability.

The pull-up bar provides an added challenge. Your abs will have to work overtime to help your body stay still while being suspended in the air.

Easy to Use

Have you ever wandered into a commercial gym, looked at a machine with so many bells and whistles it would probably confuse Albert Einstein and then walked away too intimidated to even try?

You're not likely to experience that feeling with a captain's chair. This is one of the simplest, most accessible machines you can use in the gym.

You don't have to deal with difficult plate loading or cumbersome equipment that could injure you or others easily. This makes the captain's chair a great exercise for gym newbies or people who like to simplify the equipment requirements in their workout routines.

Captain's Chair Muscles Worked

Rectus Abdominis

This large area of divided muscle on the front of your trunk is also known as your six-pack. When you work towards a beach body or you're trying to get shredded like a Greek god, working on the rectus abdominis is an essential part of building an aesthetic body. On a captain's chair, straight leg raises are usually the best way to target the rectus abdominis muscles.

Obliques

The obliques are the waist muscles on the sides of your torso. Obliques help you twist your trunk from side to side. Rotating the trunk helps you to reach or bend over to pick things up. Healthy obliques and a torso that can twist comfortably also help you maintain spinal health and spinal flexibility.

Hip Flexors

When you hinge at the hips to perform any kind of abdominal crunching move, you work your hip flexor muscles. This includes major muscles like the psoas major and the rectus femoris.

All of these muscles help you bend your knees in towards your torso and extend and move your thighs backwards, away from your torso. Most adults don't have great mobility in their hip flexors. Research indicates that tight hip flexors can cause pain across the lumbar spine (lower back).

According to established and emergent studies, desk work and sedentary jobs are major contributors to hip flexor weakness. Regardless, your bad hip flexors can majorly impact your athletic performance and the motions of everyday life too, so it’s important to get up and stretch.

Building stronger hips along with improving your core strength is a great way to ensure you maintain flexibility and mobility into older age.

Captain’s Chair Exercises

Straight Leg Raises

This is one of the simplest exercises you can perform on a captain's chair. To do straight leg raises, plant your back against the backrest of the machine and grab the handles for support. Brace your abs then without bending your knees lift your legs straight up so they come to a 90° angle with your torso.

Pro tip: If you’re not quite up to working with straight legs yet, try a bent-knee variation. It’s always better to maintain the integrity of your core and form while building strength in the abs, rather than swinging your legs and taking away from the resistance of the exercise.

Windshield Wiper

Depending on how you position your body inside the machine, you can perform a windshield wiper exercise using the captain's chair. Extend your legs out in front of you either straight or bent.

Twist at the obliques to drop your legs or knees toward one side. Using your core strength bring them back through center then drop the knees to the other side. Keep alternating sides making sure to twist and engage through the obliques.

Captain's Chair L-Sit Progression

This is a variation on a traditional L-sit, and you can certainly incorporate it into your workout program if you hope to perform a full L-sit. In a captain's chair L-sit, your hands won't be planted on the floor like in the traditional version.

However, this can still help with some strong core engagement. To perform the captain's chair L-sit, plant your back against the backrest of the machine. Grasp your handles, then raise your legs up and out straight making an L position with your body.

Hold this position for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Perform this move for three reps, breaking for 30 seconds to 1 minute in between.

Captain's Chair Bicycle Crunches

Traditionally, we perform bicycle crunches on the floor, crunching our knees in towards our bodies one by one in an alternating pattern. You can do this on a captain's chair machine too.

Simply come to an upright position on the machine and grasp the handles then point your toes down toward the floor and extend your legs one by one alternating legs each time. Continue for 10 total reps in one set.

Since this is an alternating leg move, one crunch on each side equals one total reo. So if you crunch your right leg in, then your left leg, that would be one rep. Continue for 10 reps. Aim to perform 3 to 4 sets of this move and you'll be sure to feel your abs the next day.

The Takeaway

A captain's chair routine is one of the best ways to revolutionize your ab day. for beginners especially, this apparatus lets you work in some complex abdominal work, if you prefer to work in an upright position.

The machine is very accessible for beginning gym goers. It doesn't require plate loading or finicky equipment. If you want to train hanging exercises, like hanging leg raises, windshield wipers, or even pull-ups for the abs, using the captain's chair is a great way to get started.

This machine helps you target your rectus abdominis (the six-pack muscles), as well as your oblique muscles and hip flexors. Depending on your exercises, one muscle group may be more active than another.

That being said, the captain's chair is great for getting in a total core workout. Core workouts are essential to maintaining stability and balance, and they can help you reduce soreness If you experience pain in your lower back.

Remember to keep your diet in check while you work on your abs as well. No matter how strong you are, your muscles won’t show up well under an extra 5 pounds of fat. Be sure to incorporate lean proteins, healthy fats and complex carbohydrates.

If you’re having trouble reducing body fat, you may want to explore options like taking fat burners, whether or not you work out or pre-workout supplements.

Remember to consult a doctor or sports nutritionist to guide you in the right direction if you are considering athletic nutrition supplements.

Put yourself in the captain’s seat. Flex offers an all-in-one workout platform to help you learn new exercises, visualize your fitness journey and keep all your PRs in one place.

We’ve made it simple to work on customized fitness plans or to introduce a little friendly competition to your fitness community by sharing exercises with your friends. Try it for free through the Flex fitness app.

References:

Adams, L., Pace, N., Heo, A., Hunter, I., Johnson, A. W., & Mitchell, U. H. (2022). Internal and External Oblique Muscle Asymmetry in Sprint Hurdlers and Sprinters: A Cross-Sectional Study. Journal of sports science & medicine, 21(1), 120–126. https://doi.org/10.52082/jssm.2022.120

Konrad, A., Močnik, R., Titze, S., Nakamura, M., & Tilp, M. (2021). The Influence of Stretching the Hip Flexor Muscles on Performance Parameters. A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(4), 1936. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041936

Murdock CJ, Mudreac A, Agyeman K. Anatomy, Abdomen and Pelvis, Rectus Femoris Muscle. [Updated 2023 Nov 13]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2024 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK539897/

Nishimura, T., & Miyachi, R. (2020). Relationship between low back pain and lumbar and hip joint movement in desk workers. Journal of Physical Therapy Science, 32(10), 680–685. https://doi.org/10.1589/jpts.32.680

Siccardi MA, Tariq MA, Valle C. Anatomy, Bony Pelvis and Lower Limb: Psoas Major. [Updated 2023 Aug 8]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2024 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK535418/