Exercise library

How to do the Elbow to Knee

A beginner compound exercise using bodyweight, working the abdominals.

Primary musclesAbdominals
Secondary musclesNone recorded
EquipmentBodyweight
LevelBeginner
TypeCompound
ForcePull

Steps

  1. Lie on the floor, crossing your right leg across your bent left knee. Clasp your hands behind your head, beginning with your shoulder blades on the ground. This will be your starting position.
  2. Perform the motion by flexing the spine and rotating your torso to bring the left elbow to the right knee.
  3. Return to the starting position and repeat the movement for the desired number of repetitions before switching sides.

Tracking it in OneRep

Add the elbow to knee to a routine and your previous weight and reps sit beside every set, so the decision to add load is made by what is already on the screen rather than by memory. Exercise history and volume trends are one tap away, and logging works offline for the gyms where signal does not reach.

Because OneRep tracks food on the same timeline, a stall on this lift can be read against what you were actually eating that month — which is the difference between a programming problem and an eating one. More on that in tracking progressive overload without a spreadsheet.

Where the instructions come from

The steps above come from free-exercise-db, a public-domain exercise dataset. They are general guidance, not coaching for your body: if a movement hurts, stop and get someone qualified to look at it.