Some things you can’t evade: Death, Taxes, and Grueling leg workouts. Legs constitute roughly 50% of our muscle mass yet somehow people tend to skip on these muscle groups. Having a strong set of legs will help you elevate your performance and build a strong foundation for your compound lifts.
Here are few moves that you can incorporate into your leg workout routine to set those wheels on fire:
Jump Squat
Adding some air to a squat makes an otherwise manageable move just plain exhausting—but it also helps rev your heart and strengthen your backside all at once. Incorporate this move in your legs workout to feel the burn. Here’s how to perform this movement:
- Stand with your feet just shoulder-width apart; toes turned slightly out.
- Squat down with your weight in your heels, keeping your chest up, knees tracking over toes, and a neutral spine.
- When you hit the bottom of your squat, squeeze your butt tight and drive hard through your legs and heels as you launch straight up, pelvis forward, pushing off your toes at the last moment of contact with the floor.
- Land softly, then use the momentum from landing to go right into your next squat. That’s one proper rep.
Fire Hydrants
This move is called fire hydrant for a reason! Without one in your proximity, you are going to feel the burn. This move targets the outer glutes, hamstrings, core and hips. Focusing on this area of your body critical because you need your core and hip complex to act as a single unit. It’s the foundation for your entire kinetic chain, i.e. the joints, muscles, and nerves that make up your mobility system. Here’s how to perform this movement:
- Start in a quadruped position with your wrists stacked directly under your shoulders and hips over your knees.
- Keep your belly button drawn in toward your spine, back flat, and your right leg bent at 90 degrees. Lift your leg out to your right side, stopping at hip height.
- Return to start. That’s one rep.
Pistol Squat
Pistol Squats are a force to be reckoned with! This is one of the most important bodyweight movements to master as it incorporates glutes, quads, hips, core as well as the back muscles. Mastering this will take time but make this a staple in your leg workouts as the rewards are worth it!
How to perform this movement:
- Start by standing on one leg, with the toes slightly turned out. Pick the other leg off the floor, and fully extend it in front of you.
- Brace your core and back muscles as you hinge your hips slightly forward.
- Squat down, allowing your knee to pass over your toes as low as you can go.
- With the weight of your body evenly distributed over the foot that’s on the ground, carefully sit back into a squat, making sure your torso has a slight forward lean.
- At the deep squat position, use your single-leg power to press through the floor, engaging the core to allow for maximal force. That’s one rep.
Nordic Hamstring Curls
This movement will make you realize that you don’t need a gym to push your legs to the absolute limit. This exercise is one of the toughest bodyweight movement that will build your backside and provide an insane burn. This exercise is unique because you have to use your hamstrings to hold your hips in place while you bend your knees.
How to perform this movement:
- Kneel down on an exercise mat with your feet locked firmly on the floor.
- You can also put your feet under a loaded barbell or ask your training partner to hold them down.
- Your thighs should be straight up and your body upright.
- Use your hamstrings to control your movement, lean forward, and lower your body down to the floor.
- Keep your body straight.
- Use your arms to catch you.
- Push with your arms and pull with your hamstrings to return to the starting position.
Kneeling Hip Flexor Stretch
This movement is not a conventional exercise but more of a dynamic mobility drill that is essential for strengthening and mobilizing the hips as well as the glutes. Perform this movement at the start of your workout by taking a dynamic approach by alternating legs or perform this as a cool down move by holding the apex of the stretch for 20 secs then changing sides.
How to perform this movement:
- From a kneeling position, place the left knee on the floor (or stretch mat) directly under the left hip, and put the right foot in front of the right hip so that the right knee is now over the right ankle and the right hip are perpendicular.
- Place both hands on the right thigh to maintain a straight spine.
- Pull your shoulders down and back and don’t arch your low back.
- Engage your core to stiffen your spine and keep your pelvis stable. Lean forward into your right hip while keeping your left knee pressed into the ground, do not allow your pelvis to rotate.
- To increase the stretch to the left hip flexors, squeeze and contract the glute muscles of your left hip and vice versa.
- Hold the stretch position for 20-45 seconds at a time for a total of 2-5 repetitions while trying to move into the stretch a little deeper with each repetition.