When deciding to exercise it is very easy to overlook working out your legs. It is a big muscle group that often tires you out quickly and leaves you sore for days. This temporary pain should not deter you! Keeping your legs active and engaged is an essential part of building a well-rounded physically fit body. Today we will learn about 3 leg exercises that will improve your fitness!
3 leg exercises to improve your fitness
To keep your goal of building an ideal physically fit body, we have culminated 3 leg exercises that will not only build and tone your legs but also improve your overall fitness.
Squats
Primary Muscle Groups: Quadriceps, Hamstring, Glutes
Level of Difficulty: Medium
How to perform: The common rules to squatting is to keep your legs shoulder width apart, toes slightly facing out away from your body and lowering yourself to at least a 90-degree angle. A 90-degree angle is referring to how low you go to the ground during your squat. You want to imagine that when you are at the bottom of your squat, your thighs are parallel to the floor. According to your physical fitness and knee strength, you can go lower to engage a deeper and harder variation or stop higher than 90 degrees if your knees do not feel like they can handle it.
Here is a video from Bowflex visually explaining how this important exercise is performed.
Rep Scheme:
- Body Weight: 4 sets by 20 reps
- Weighted: 4 sets by 10 reps
Lunges
Primary Muscle Groups: Quadriceps, Hamstring, Glutes
Level of Difficulty: Medium
How to perform: Two common variations of lunges include, stationary back lunges and moving forward lunges. Both variations are great with minor differences In the muscle groups they target. A stationary back lunge is when, from a standing position, move one leg backwards and bend it into a 90-degree angle. Pause at the bottom of the lunge, do not rest your bent leg on the ground, and slowly move back into the standing position. Continue the exercise while alternating your legs.
Moving forward lunges are performed very much like how they sound. Start at a standing position and move one leg forward, bending it to a 90-degree angle. Pause at that position, and then straighten both legs out and move your back leg to meet the other and return to a standing position. Continue the exercise while alternating your legs until you run out of room in front of you and then turn back around.
Once again we have a video from Bowflex to help visually explain how to do a lunge properly.
Rep Scheme:
- Body Weight: 4 sets by 30 reps
- Weighted: 4 sets by 20
Romanian Deadlifts
Primary Muscle Group: Glutes, Hamstrings, Adductors
Level of Difficulty: Hard
How to perform: Keep your feet shoulder-width apart, straighten out your legs, and straighten out your back. If you are performing this exercise with additional weight via a barbell, make sure to hold onto the barbell at a close to medium grip. With your legs and back straight start to bend forward by only hinging at your hips. It is important to make sure that your back and legs stay straight for this entire movement. Once you have bent as far as you can go, start to slowly bring yourself back up while keeping focus on hinging at your hips. Bring yourself to the standing position and squeeze your leg muscles for a second or two. This will add an extra burn and resistance to the workout.
A great fitness YouTube channel called “Buff Dudes” has a really informative video on how to properly execute a Romanian Deadlift. They post quality content regularly and are worth checking out.
Rep Scheme:
- Body Weight: 4 sets by 15 reps
- Weighted: 4 sets by 8-10 reps
Rest and Recovery
While these 3 leg exercises will improve your fitness, your results will get slowed down if you do not get your proper rest and recovery. An after workout protein like a shake or a lean meal will help ensure that your body gets fuel to start rebuilding itself stronger, and a good night’s rest is essential for your body to heal.
Great Health Benefits From Protein
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