Straight leg invert exercises (and a little pole nerding)

There’s this funny thing about pole that no-one tells you at the beginning.

The thing that makes pole infuriatingly challenging, but simultaneously appealing to our goal-driven personalities… it NEVER ends! 🤣

You finally land that ‘must-have’ trick after months/years of uphill effort, happily place a big fat tick and smiley face next to that move on your list. Hurrah! 

But the Pole Gods do not stay appeased for long – you’ve only just begun!

That completed mission suddenly opens up a whole new goal sub-list: putting it into combos, transitioning in and out of it, working on more advanced versions and perfecting the finer details.

And so it goes with the invert… no sooner have you got your tuck invert on point, than you find yourself staring up at a fresh mountain to climb: mastering your invert with straight legs!

It’s the never-ending, forever-moving goal mountain that is pole – but that’s why we love it, right?! Bring on the next mission! 💪

If you’re currently staring up at the straight leg invert mountain, trying to plot your route to the summit – this blog post is for you!

In it, I’ll cover:

1. A little anatomy nerding on the straight leg invert, so you know why this sucker is such a damn challenge!
2. An exploration of the key areas so you can start figuring out exactly what’s holding you back.
3. Exercises you can use to train those key areas!

Rather watch than read? I hear ya – here’s the quick-fire run-through of this post! Keep on scrollin’ for all the details!

Why is the straight leg invert so much harder than the bent leg version? (A little pole anatomy nerding)

When we straighten our legs, we take more of our bodyweight away from our centre of mass, making the whole movement more challenging, especially for our core muscles which are now having to work *extra* hard to stabilise our spine and pelvis position, so everything else can work efficiently.

With the legs straight, we’re also now adding an element of active hamstring flexibility, meaning we need some flexibility in our hamstrings and waaay more strength in our hip flexors than we needed for the bent leg invert.

We’ve also added engagement of our quads which are working to keep our legs straight.

If you’re struggling, it’s probably one (or a combination) of these areas that is blocking you from the beautiful straight leg invert of your dreams.

To recap… in comparison to the bent leg invert, we need:

✔ More core strength

✔ Hamstring flexibility

✔ More hip flexor strength

✔ Quad strength

No wonder turning our bent leg invert into a straight leg invert is so tricky!

Our body will always try to find the path of least resistance when we ask it to do something challenging, so if your tuck invert feels great but trying to straighten your legs is a big ol’ pile of NOPE, your body is probably just trying to side-step one or more of the above challenges by bending your legs and making life easier.

Let’s take a closer look at these areas; how you can figure out which areas might be holding you back, and how to strengthen each one.

*For the purposes of this blog post, I’m assuming you’ve got your bent leg invert absolutely nailed with no momentum. If not, go back to take a look at my other invert blogs (you can start here) before working on this!*

Just to clarify, here’s what we’re working towards. In the demo below, I’m showing the pike version (legs together) and this is what this blog post is focused on, but you can adapt the exercises below for the straddle version if that’s what you’re working on!

1. Core strength for the straight leg invert

Our core needs to stabilise our trunk for everything else to work seamlessly. If this aspect falls down, the whole thing will fall down! Gah!

The further away our feet are from our midline, the more demand we place on our core stability! With our legs straight, we are creating a longer lever from our body, which makes the core demand significantly higher.

You can check-in on your core strength with the test below, which is taken from my 6-Week Core Foundations program. If you can get your feet pretty close to the floor in this test (around 10-20 degrees from the floor), while maintaining good engagement, your core strength is likely in pretty good shape to start working on the straight leg invert.

Remember, though, that the straight leg invert is a lot harder than the movement in the test, so even if you’re acing that, you may *still* need to advance your core training to develop the extra strength needed for the straight leg invert, it’s just that you’ll probably be able to head straight to the more advanced exercises which I’ve linked below.

Core strength exercises

If you can bent leg invert, you should already be able to maintain your core engagement while performing the lying invert tuck below. If you can’t, please stick with this exercise before moving on to the straight leg progressions!

Got the bent leg version nailed? Awesome! Now we can work on the straight leg progressions below to create a super solid base of core stability for your straight leg invert. Remember, without this strong foundation, the whole thing is gonna be a strugglebus!

The exercises below are demonstrated in a pike position, but you can also do these with a straddle!

Progression 1: Lying straight leg invert (one leg)

Progression 2: Lying straight leg invert (negative)

Progression 3: Lying straight leg invert

Once you’ve mastered these lying straight leg movements, you can progress onto more advanced variations, like: hollowbody holds, l-sits and hanging leg raises – basically any core exercise where you’re keeping your legs straight will have a lot of cross-over here!

2. Hamstring flexibility for the straight leg invert

Inverting with our legs straight requires hamstring flexibility that we didn’t have to worry about in the bent leg version. The closer we can get our legs to our torso, the easier we’ll be able to tip back (because we’re bringing the weight of our legs closer to our centre of mass).

So the more ‘piked’ we can get, the more efficiently we’ll be able to perform the tip back!

To check-in on your passive hamstring flexibility, you can use the test below which is taken from my 6-Week Strength and Stretch for Splits program.

The above test is also a check-in for potential nerve tension (you can find out more about that in my post: Is Nerve Tension holding back your hamstring flexibility?).

You can also check your active hamstring flexibility level using the test below (also taken from my 6-Week Strength and Stretch for Splits program).

If you’re able to sit upright with a flat back, ideally with at least a slight lean forwards over your legs in the passive test AND you can bring your legs up to above 90 degrees on the active test, then you probably have the mobility needed for the straight leg invert and just need to focus on strengthening your hip flexors and quads (more on that below!).

If you can’t sit in an upright position without rounding your back or bending your legs, or you struggle to reach at least 90 degrees on the active test, it’s likely that working on your hamstring flexibility will help in your straight leg invert mission!

For my go-to hamstring flexibility exercises AND more detail on how I usually structure flexibility training, please head to my Hip flexion workout for pole dancers!

3. Hip flexor and quad strength for the straight leg invert

The muscles responsible for lifting our legs close to our torso as we invert are our hip flexors. Primarily our psoas and illiacus assisted by our secondary hip flexors (rectus femoris, TFL and sartorius).

With our legs straight, those hip flexors are already working harder because of that longer lever and the force of gravity – yay physics!

But there’s an added challenge for our hip flexors, too: once our legs get close to and beyond around 90 degrees of hip flexion, with the legs straight, those secondary hip flexors lose some of their hip flexion powers.

Long story short: with our legs straight, our psoas and illiacus are gonna have to be ready to step it up big time, as well as the quads that need to stay engaged to keep our legs straight, too!

Strengthening our hip flexors (and quads) with exercises where we’re moving close to and above that 90 degree point is really key for the straight leg invert. Here are some examples of that.

Progression 1: Pole seated pike lift with support

Progression 2: Pole seated pike lift with flat back

4. ‘On the pole’ progressions for the straight leg invert

Finally, I want to share with you some of my favourite ‘ON the pole’ skill and strength progressions for the straight leg invert!

Here, we’re combining all the above elements, together with the upper body demands of the actual invert, but performing the movement in reverse. Training the ‘negative’ of the movement like this is easier than lifting up, but it uses all the same muscles we need for the lift, so it’s great for building strength.

Progression 1: Straight leg invert negatives (one leg)

Progression 2(a): Straight leg invert negatives (straddle)

Progression 2(b): Straight leg invert negatives (pike)

Thanks for nerding with me! I hope this post has helped clear a path to your straight leg invert!

I leave you with a classic philosophical quote from Dr Seuss…

You’re off to great places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, So… get on your way!

Dr Seuss

Want to learn how to programme your strength training for pole? My book, Strength and Conditioning for Pole is available now – fully illustrated with over 400 pages of pole nerding! Want to start training straight away? Check out my Online 6-Week Training Workbooks for pole dancers and let’s get it!

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