My favorite body parts to train are my legs and glutes. There is nothing quite like the feeling of having solid legs that are strong and powerful, that allow me to jump and bend down low with grace and ease. And a bootie that feels happy in a bathing suit is yet just another grand benefit of working that back side. Today I am going to share with you a leg day workout that recently won a contest for it’s richness in great details (alignment, tips, sequencing, etc) on Instagram too, so you don’t wanna miss this one!
I have designed this workout to hit every part of your lower body! Glutes, inner thighs, quads, outer hips and hammies. Oh, I didn’t forget your calves, we work those in the 4 minute, high intensity, Tabata set that I throw into the middle of this workout to greatly boost your body’s capacity to turn you into a fat burning powerhouse for hours after your workout is complete!
I do all my workouts from home, so hand weights and HIIT (high intensity interval training) is how I roll. I was away for the weekend at a hotel, so was using their space and weights on this particular day.
Below I will break down each exercise for you. Giving you alignment tips on each one so you can get the most BANG for your buck. 😉 There is also a short video attached to each exercise so you can see a visual. Some of us learn great that way, me included! At the very bottom of this post I made a cheat sheet for you with the entire workout written up!
Squats To Tone Those Quads
Exercise 1 starts with the top left box and then moves clockwise.
1. Squats. Yep, can’t get enough squats in for a great leg day! Using this as today’s targeted quad exercise, although it is working more than just your quads. Here’s how:
- Stand with feet outer hip distance apart and parallel to each other. Keeping your feet parallel here can help to keep compression out of your low back.
- With weights at your side stand up. As you bend your knees stay heavy in your heels, move your inner groins back to lengthen your low back, and keep a tone in your low belly.
- Keep your knees as wide as your ankles! Don’t let them collapse towards each other, not even a few inches.
- As you come standing resist the top of your shin bones forward as you lift the muscles of your quads up from knees into hips. This is really important so you do t hyperextend your knees as you stand. Something done often and it will lead to injury if not refined.
- Simply follow those alignment tips for a rocking squat that will build muscle tone without blowing out your low back or knees.
3 sets of 20. Increase weight if you are not burning by number 15.
Like a visual? Here you go:
[youtube id=”cvmTIQN6kP0″ width=”600″ height=”350″]
Wide Squats For Strong Inner Thighs
2. Buddha Squat (that is what I call it). Using this exercise to target inner thighs, but more muscles are being worked for sure. Here’s a few pointers I want you to focus on:
- Open feet wide enough so when you bend your legs to a 90 degree your ankles are directly under your knees.
- Use one heavy weight, holding it in front if you and close to your body .
- Turn your feet out. As you bend your knees I to your squat keep the center of your knee cap in line with the center of your foot, not more towards the big toe side of your foot. Keep this alignment in the down and up transitioning!
- As you straighten your legs isometrically draw your feet towards each other to enhance the work of the inner thighs.
- Again, do not hyper extend your knees as the top of the extension!
3 sets of 20 getting into the burn.
If you like a visual of this wide squat exercise, here you go:
[youtube id=”xVpGZO-nJzs” width=”600″ height=”350″]
Tabata Exercise For Lower Body & To Burn Fat
3. Touchdowns done in Tabata Protocol. Time to add some plyometric work and bring in the power, agility, and fast twitch muscle fibers which are not being challenged in the other exercises. This segment is only 4 minutes long but I want you going ALL-OUT! Here’s how:
Set a timer like this (there are free apps for this on your phone, or you can just use a stop watch and keep your eye on it the whole time too):
20 seconds all out
10 seconds rest
8 rounds
For beginners stay in low impact (shown at beginning in box 3 of that video). For more advanced explode through your legs to get hang time in the air.
- Be explosive with the legs and light in your joints.
- Keep the low back long while touching the floor by bringing inner groins back and apart with a lifted low belly.
- This will spike heart rate and blast fat!
Here’s a short video clip of all 5 exercises:
[youtube id=”36dFacuPG1w” width=”600″ height=”350″]
Standing Side Leg Lifts Target Glutes and Outer Hips
4. Standing side leg raises for outer hips and glutes.
- Stand with a micro bend in your supporting leg.
- Activate the legs by hugging the muscles to the bones and lifting them up from feet into pelvis.
- Maintaining that tone lift one leg to the side with resistance from your band and come back to neutral lifting up tall through your spine.
- Keep your floating ribs drawing back towards your back body as your opposite arm lift to the sky to keep a supportive tone in your core.
3 sets of 20 each side.
Another visual for you:
[youtube id=”OL9PYjKgJpc” width=”600″ height=”350″]
Single Leg Butt Lifts For Toned Hamstrings and Glutes
5. Single Leg Lifted Butt Raises, a hamstring and glute toning exercise.
- Lye on back and bend knees. Place heels away from butt so ankles are in front (not directly under) knees. Lift toes.
- Lift hips off floor and take one foot towards sky.
- To activate the hammie of the grounded leg press that heel down and isometrically pull that foot back towards your head as you slowly lower and lift hips.
3 sets of 20 each side. It will burn baby burn!
See the exercise here:
[youtube id=”vrAXlnOkNkc” width=”600″ height=”350″]
A Leg And Butt Workout To Tone, Strengthen & Burn Fat
Here is a little cheat sheet I made for you so you can have something to quickly glance at to lead you through this workout after reading all the tips. I will however have this very workout as a full length video with warm up and cool down on my new online yoga and fitness website. There I will cue you, being with you as you workout, on all the alignment tips. At the same time I will motivate you to get the very most out of each rep!
Yahoo! I can’t wait to sweat by your virtual side very soon. If you are not on my newsletter, make sure you are so you can get notified of how to get your free week trial soon!!!
Cool Down Is Important
Stretch out those hip flexors, quads, hammies and glutes and enjoy the rest of your day!
Won’t it be amazing to be led through entire workouts instructed with optimal form, encouraging motivations and warm ups and cool downs. Yay!!! Very very very soon coming.
For now, rock this with all my tips and leave me a comment below letting me know how it felt.