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Five The Best Exercises To Strengthen The Legs
Leg Strength Exercise
- Young smiling woman warming up and stretching her legs
- Leg toning exercises at home
Keeping your legs toned is beneficial because leg exercises work for the largest muscle group. Leg strength improves balance and coordination, protects joints from injury, and speeds up metabolism. Leg exercises can become even more critical as you age to keep your ankles, knees, and hips in good shape. While walking is an excellent exercise for increasing your heart rate, it doesn’t build as much muscle tone as leg-focused exercises.
Try adding leg exercises to your strength exercise routine twice a week. Your goal should remain 10 to 15 reps per set and two to three sets per workout. Because the leg muscles are large, you should quickly notice an improvement in muscle tone. However, if you have joint problems, talk to your doctor before adding a leg workout to your exercise routine.
1. Alternate knee Raises
It’s wise to start any strength workout with an exercise that doubles as cardio and muscle-builder. For example, alternating knee raises to get the job done by toning your hamstrings and quads. And also glutes while increasing your heart rate and improving balance. The other benefit is that they are easy to make. Stand with your feet hip-width apart. Raise your right knee to hip height. Lower your knee and do the same movement with your left knee. Repeat the order for one to three minutes. You can also achieve the same effect but by climbing stairs.
2. Squats
Squats remain a classic leg strengthener that targets the hips, thighs, and glutes. Novices may want to start with chair squats and move on to standup squats. For chair squats. Stand in front of a robust chair when you’re about to sit on it. Place your feet slightly wider than shoulder width. Put your weight in your heels and slowly bend your knees to lower your buttocks toward the chair. As you approach the chair, quickly press to stand up. Standing squats use the same movement without the chair. Do 10 to 15 squats per set.
3. Lunges
When you want to work all your leg muscles at once, go for the lunge. Work your glutes, quads, and hamstrings. And also calves. Stand with your feet shoulder-width separately and step your right foot forward as you drop your back knee to the floor. Then, push off your back foot to reappear to the initial position. Repeat with the left leg. You can also make reverse lunges, where you take a step back. Either way, always drop your back knee to the ground. If you want to add variety, try lunging forward as you go on each time you do it.
4. Calf Increase
Your calves may not remain as big as the other leg muscles, but they still need toning to support your ankles and help you keep your balance. Calf raises are simple yet effective. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Standing near a chair, counter, railing, or wall is easier for support. Push up on the spheres of your feet as if you were on your toes, and hold for three seconds. Then gradually lower your heels to the ground. Do two or three sets of 15 increases.
5. Lateral Hip Raises
For this workout, you can use the same chair you used for squats and calf raises. The lateral hip raise strengthens the hips, thighs, and glutes. The drive also helps keep your hip joints flexible. Stand behind a robust chair with your feet planted and your toes facing onward. Keep your limbs straight but do not lock your knee joint. Gradually lift your right leg out to the side. Then return to the starting position. The slower you do this drive, the better. Repeat with your left and do this sequence 15 times on each leg.
Conclusion
When it comes to training legs, variety is key. Your quads, hamstrings and glutes are made up of multiple muscles, which are responsible for multiple lower-body functions, so it’s important to have multiple leg exercises in your arsenal and train legs holistically. Going through the motions and performing the same movements, day after day and week after week, isn’t going to cut it here. With that in mind, we’ve collected the 32 best leg exercises, but before we get to them, let’s go over why training legs is so important and why you shouldn’t skip leg day.
