Better legs at home
Build a great pair of legs without going to the gym
Home training has become a hot topic since the appearance of COVID 19. With the closure of gyms and the rising profile of fitness influencers, there’s been a huge increase in articles and videos giving people advice about how to build a better body at home. Some of it is good, a lot of it isn't. For people who’ve never been active, any exercise is going to be beneficial. But once you achieve a fairly good level of strength and fitness, home workouts can get a little too easy. When that happens it’s hard to stick with them, the exercises become unchallenging, and you stop seeing improvements which leads to waning motivation.
In this article I’ll give you a range of exercises you can do at home to build great legs at home, and keep yourself challenged and engaged for the long run.
Everything is a squat
The squat is the most fundamental leg exercise, and it’s one of the best. For a lot of people, just performing a good set of proper squats with their bodyweight will lead to improvements in their leg strength and muscularity. Your legs are made of the strongest, largest muscles in your body, and they will adapt quickly. To keep improving, you need to keep making the exercise more difficult.
When you are squatting, your feet should be not be wider than your shoulders, and your knees should be pointing forward. The natural squat is actually a resting position, that was used all over the world before there were chairs. Our bodies are very well designed for squats.
Sitting all the way down into a squat, then getting back up again, is a great leg exercise. If you do not have the ankle flexibility to go all the way down into a squat, elevate your heels a little but wearing a well padded shoe or placing something under your heels.
If you’ve not exercised before, start by doing three sets of squats. Go all the way down and stand all the way up. You will exercise your thighs, hamstrings and butt if you use a full range of motion.
The movement should be smooth and slow. Do not bounce at the bottom. Keep the rest between sets to no more than one minute. At the top of each repetition contract your thighs for a second before descending again.
When you can do three sets of fifty, you will already be in good shape. A lot of people are surprised by how much of a demand high reps of squats place on their heart and lungs. Don’t be surprised if you're out of breath and your heart rate is elevated. Effective exercise does that.
The next steps
If you want to keep improving, your need to make your workout more challenging. There are several ways to do this.
One of my favourites is to get my children involved. I begin by squatting all the way down and letting my eldest child climb onto my shoulders. She weighs around 25kg. I then do as many squats as I can with her sitting on my shoulders. When I can do no more, she jumps off and I let my youngest sit on my shoulders, for a slight reduction in weight. Then I carry on until I can’t. For the last part of the workout, I just do squats with my bodyweight until I simply can’t continue.
If you are struggling on the cardiorespiratory side of things, just perform normal sets with the added weight of a child, resting for a minute between each set. Resist the temptation to add more and more sets. Three is enough. To make the workout harder, just perform more repetitions per set.
Seeing their parents exercise tends to instil healthy habits in children, so that’s an added bonus. My children are probably the fittest in their respective classes.
If you don’t have children, you could try holding a heavy object to your chest, then putting it down when you can’t do any more repetitions with the added weight, and continue the set using just your bodyweight.
Only allow people to sit on your shoulders if you are totally confident of your balance and ability!
If you really want to challenge yourself, do your squats in slow motion. You have no idea how effective this technique is until you try it. Perform a full squat, and try to make each half of the movement take thirty seconds. Use a timer or a watch. Watching those numbers will keep you focused and help you to keep your mind off of the burning sensation in your legs. Thirty seconds up, thirty seconds down. That means each repetition will take a full minute. Stick at this until you can do 5 repetitions. That will be five minutes of continuous tension. That’s a hardcore workout.
Guess what you can do after you’re managing five repetitions of slow motion squats? You can add weight again. And then work back up to the point where you are doing five repetitions.
When performing super slow exercises, you can do more than one set if you’re really masochistic, but I don’t think it’s necessary.
Eventually, you’re going to be in such great shape that even slow motion squats with added weight no longer really challenge you. That’s when it’s time for one legged squats. These require good balance, so you’ll need practise. Don’t be afraid to fall on your arse a few times, it’s going to happen.
The leg that you are not squatting on should be held out in front of you, without letting the heel touch the ground. It’s a tricky manoeuvre, but you’ll get there after a few tries.
Work up to 20 repetitions per leg, going from one leg to the other. So you perform as many repetitions on the left leg as you can, then you move straight onto squats with the right leg. Repeat until you have done three sets on each leg. When you’re doing three sets of 20, add some weight. Then when that becomes easy, start doing slow motion, one legged squats.
Do not get people to sit on your shoulders for one legged squats. Somebody will get injured.
Working up to slow motion, one legged squats with added weight is going to take some time. On the way, you’re going to build some seriously well toned legs.
What else can you do?
More steps!
Just about every home in the world has an excellent piece of exercise equipment that people rarely use; the stairs. Walking up and down the stairs is actually very good exercise. Running up and down them is even better. If your technique is good, running will not ruin your steps. Your footsteps can be surprisingly light.
As a standalone exercise, running up and down the stairs will really improve the strength and condition of your legs. The exercise is also fantastic for your heart and lungs. But it does not use a full range of motion. Therefore I prefer to combine squats with running up and down the stairs. You can do this in several ways. Either alternate the workouts, or combine them. For a really punishing session, I will perform my slow motion squats, then run up and down the steps 50 times. It’s a killer.
If you are a beginner, try doing squats one day, then having a day or two of rest, then run up and down the steps fifty time, then have a couple of days of rest before going back to squats. If you can’t manage fifty times up and down, start with a lower number and try to increase it at each workout.
The final exercise I use to keep my legs in great condition when I can’t get to the gym is sprinting. I’ve saved this till last because it’s not technically an exercise I do at home, I do it on the street. My preferred method is to sprint the length of my road (about 100 meters) , then walk back, then repeat. I do that 20 times. Once again, if you can’t mange 20, start with a lower number. If you’ve not done sprints before, you’ll be surprised at how much they make your legs hurt the next day.
Regularity and Frequency
You now know three ways to build stronger legs and a fitter body. You can combine them as you see fit to make the workouts as hard as you want. But a word of caution; do not exercise every day. Between each workout, you should allow at least one day of rest. Why? Because your body only repairs itself when you are resting. Exercising everyday will quickly put an end to your progress because your body will not be able to recover from the workouts. As you get stronger, you will actually need to increase the amount of rest between workouts, as your workouts will be more intense and take a bigger toll on your body. ,
Use the tips in this article, work hard, work smart, and get plenty of rest. Your thigs, hamstrings, glutes, heart and lungs will all be glad you did.
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