Lower body strength is super important for athletes or even for staying healthy outside of the gym. If you want to increase your lower-body strength, stability, and performance, try adding unilateral movements and machine exercises into your routine. Working numerous muscles in different ways than your normal workouts, these leg workouts can turn leg day into a muscle growth day in no time. Keep reading to learn more.
The Importance of a Well-Rounded Leg Workout
The best types of workouts are the ones that target as many muscles as possible, and the same is true for leg workouts. Finding exercises that can target your quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves, and core will only increase your strength and stability in a balanced way. Try a blend of compound and isolation exercises to see the best results in your lower half. Here are some tips on where to start:
- Start with Demanding Compound Lifts: Start your routine with squats or deadlifts to build energy and focus for the rest of the workout.
- Incorporate Unilateral Exercises: Next, include some Bulgarian split squats or single-leg Romanian deadlifts to improve your balance and stability between legs.
- Finish with Isolation Moves: End with hamstring curls or calf raises to further enhance the smaller stabilizing muscles.
Mastering the Basics: Key Exercises
Squats are synonymous with leg workouts, providing the athlete with quad, glute, and core muscle engagement with each rep. Plus, you can customize the squat workout to your skill level, turning them into bodyweight, goblet, or barbell back squats. Below are just a few of the ways squats positively impact your body:
- Improves Posture and Flexibility: Squats can help make daily activities easier, like climbing stairs or sprinting, or improve your posture.
- Prevents Injury: To get the most out of each squat and to prevent injury, make sure to have proper squat form.
- Modification Options: You can even do squats with knee pain. All you need to do is modify the exercise with a reduced squat depth or wall sits.
Targeting the Posterior Chain
Along with squats, add Romanian deadlifts and single-leg deadlifts to your leg workouts. See how they can impact your workout, along with single-leg focused workouts, below:
- Strengthen Posterior Chain: Both of the above workouts target hamstrings, glutes, and lower back muscles while also keeping the core engaged.
- Lunges and Step-Ups: These two workouts can help with coordination, overall strength, and balance.
- Bulgarian Split Squats and Lateral Lunges: Try these workouts to improve your hip stability and outer thigh strength.
Staying Consistent for Progress
Consistency is key when it comes to working out, and beginners should also focus on proper form and fundamental movements. By mastering squats, lunges, and glute bridges using body weight, you can elevate the workouts with added weight or more difficult variations. Follow these steps to go from beginner to pro:
- Gradual Increase in Intensity: As you gain strength doing bodyweight reps, add in resistance bands or dumbbells for more difficulty.
- Frequency: Add leg workouts 1-2 times during your weekly routine, with at least a day of rest in between to rest and recovery.
- Full-Body Workouts: Add in compound lifts and full-body workouts to your routine to regularly engage your lower body.
Incorporating Machine-based Variations
Body weight and free weights aren’t the only ways you can enhance leg workouts. If possible, adding in machine-based exercises like pendulum squats can provide a new way to work those muscles, and even a more joint-friendly way. Check out some of these other joint-friendly ways to get in leg workouts:
- Joint-friendly Design: The pendulum squat and other machine leg workouts are perfect for those who struggle with joint pain or want to focus on quad development.
- Bodyweight Exercises: Other bodyweight-focused exercises include sissy squats, which can keep your joints happy while still engaging your core, balance, and ankle mobility.
Add HIIT for Extra Endurance
Ready for a step up in your workout? Add in some high-intensity interval training (HIIT) that includes lower-body movements and leg workouts that can immensely help with endurance and power. Below are a couple of options to add to your routine:
- Jump Squats and Lunges: Both of these exercises can improve your cardiovascular fitness alongside leg strength.
- Resistance Training: Combine HIIT workouts with conventional workouts to get optimal muscle definition and strength from your routine.
Final Thoughts
Building your leg muscles is not just about appearance, but a great way to increase athletic performance, daily activities, posture, and even injury prevention. It doesn’t matter if you’re using your body weight, a machine, or dumbbells; these leg workouts can bring a balanced approach to your workout routine and leave you feeling stronger at the end of the day. So what are you waiting for? Try some of these leg workouts now!