Exercise machines give you the ability to work your body from seated, standing and lying positions. Every major muscle can be worked with a machine, including the obliques. These muscles have an internal and external segment, and they sit on the sides of the stomach in a diagonal pattern. The best machine to work the obliques requires nothing but the weight of the body.
Captain's Chair
The captain's chair gets its name from the fact that it resembles the chair a captain uses on a ship. From a structural standpoint, there is no actual chair to be found. The machine has a padded backrest with padded horizontal supports for the forearms and small pegs to grab onto with your hands. What makes this machine so special is its ability to work the obliques. In a study commissioned by the American Council on Exercise, the captain's chair caused the most oblique recruitment of any other exercise. In fact, study subjects received more than 300 percent oblique activity.
Exercise Technique
The basic exercise performed on the captain's chair is the hanging knee raise. Using proper technique is important to not only work your obliques, but also prevent injury. Start the exercise by placing your back against the padded support and feet on the lower supports. Keeping your forearms pressed against the top padded supports, grasp the pegs with your hands and lift your feet off the supports. Your legs should be dangling straight down at this point and you should already feel your abs tightening up. Keeping your upper body still, raise your legs, bend your knees and level your thighs to the floor. Hold for a second, slowly lower your legs and repeat.
Other Muscles Targeted
The abdominal wall actually consists of the obliques and another large muscle called the rectus abdominis. This starts at the chest and runs all the way down to the pelvis. When you perform a basic leg raise on the captain's chair, you not only work the obliques but also place a high amount of emphasis on the rectus abdominis. This makes the chair a great machine for full abdominal development.
Variations
By making a simple change, you can increase the intensity of the captain's chair exercise. Instead of bending your knees, keep your legs straight when you raise them up. Also, move them higher than parallel to the floor. You also have the ability to pull your legs up at an angle instead of straight. This will place even more emphasis on the obliques.
Added Resistance
Most workout machines have a weight stack or circular bar to place weight plates on to increase the resistance. The captain's chair however, does not have either one of these. This does not mean you cannot increase your resistance though. You actually have several options to choose from. Either pinch a medicine ball or dumbbell between your legs, strap a rubber resistance band around your ankles and to the bottom of the machine, or wear ankle weights. Ankle weights have small compartments that house pellet-filled weights.
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