The Best At-Home Leg Workouts For Everyone

So you want a successful leg day? You’re welcome. These five at-home leg workouts will help you tone and tighten your entire lower body.

But first of all, I would humbly like to tell you that you can ruin your exercise or not benefit from certain faulty workouts.

Before talking about the processes, you need to know the dos and don’ts. First, we’ll go for the don’ts because that’s more important than the dos.

The Don’ts

Never opt for too much of one exercise. It may be dangerous.

For example, if you do too many quad-dominant exercises like squats, lunges, leg presses, and leg extensions for a long time without posterior chain exercises like glutes and hamstrings, it may cause muscular imbalance.

Don’t let your back bend or curve while doing such exercise. Always keep it flat and straight.

Don’t overlook the mobility drills. Mobility drills are exercises that ensure the exertion of muscles, tendons, and the joint — all three parts.

If you avoid the mobility and only focus on one part, the simple result will be an imbalance. It’s the same as you run your machine and ignore oiling it.

Don’t let your knees bend inwards. If you have problems keeping your knees outwards, you should be doing some individual drills like holding a deep squat.

The Do’s

Consume enough fluids before, during, and after exercises. It may be plain water, creamless milk, or some kind of sports drink — you should always provide your exercising body with enough fluid, electrolytes, and energy.

Do a warm-up before any massive drill. This puts your body in action and ready to undertake any rate of strenuous activity.

Always keep it simple. If you are not aiming at grabbing the bodybuilding gold medal, you need to exercise as much as your body requires.

If you consult an expert, he will tell you precisely what you need to keep you fit in your everyday life.

There is one critical point that so many novice and non-professionals miss out on. After each exercise, take some rest, roughly 15 seconds.

Now let’s talk about our best at-home leg workouts!

Top 5 At-Home Leg Workouts

Here are five of the best leg workouts you can do at home or anywhere else:

1. Curtsy Lunges

This exercise should be the opening drill.

Stand legs apart, and knees slightly bent. Raise your hands 90 degrees to your body and clip both hands’ fingers together. This would give you extra balance.

Doing your exercises with a timer is a good practice. Your body gets an equally consistent routine of exertion.

When you are performing a squat, you want the weight to be on your heels. You keep your chest up, back straight, and make sure that your legs reach at least a 90-degree angle. You can go lower but not less than 90 degrees.

With lunges, make sure you keep your shins and legs straight. Don’t let your knees go past your toes. As with squats, go at least 90-degree with your forward leg.

2. Bulgarian Split Squats

This set is a type of single leg squat with the back leg elevated on a bench, a chair, a box, or anything else available at home. This exercise focuses on the quadriceps more than the other lower body drills.

You can do ten times on one leg and another ten times on the other.

There is no hard and fast rule like you have to maintain a stopwatch. You can either count how many times you do each exercise or how much time you take for each set.

There are also no generic rules that a particular set should be practiced this much or for that period. It entirely depends on your body fitness and your aim.

3. Lunges

The best way to do it is this:

Stand with a foot in front of the other.
Now drop your body straight down.
The couple of things you need to remember is your rear knee should stay behind your front toes. Don’t go forward.
Go down. The knee will stay right over the ankle.
Keep your chest up and look forward.
Do ten repetitions on one side, bring the other foot forward and do the same on the other side ten times.

There are other versions of lunges, but this form is the best for most people, both men, and women.

4. Jump Squats

Also known as squat jumps, they are called the power-packed HIIT (high-intensity interval training) version of squats. Exclusively and effectively involving glutes, lower abdomen, and leg muscles.

The process is so simple. You start with a squat position, then jump upward and come down to rest in the same squat position.

We can set some steps for the beginners to understand the whole process of jump squats.

Take the proper stance;
Lower yourself into the squat;
Initiate the jump;
Jump as high as you can;
Control your descent;
Touch down with the balls of your feet;
Bend your knees to absorb the impact;
Put yourself in the position for the next jump squat.

Don’t try to do it too fast. Do it in your own rhythm. Do 15-20 drops and take a short rest before starting another set of jump squats.

Don’t let your knees come in and wobble when you come back down. When your knees start shaking, you must take rest or leave for the day. Don’t let your back lean forward.

5. Jumping Jacks

This set is the easiest and most commonly practiced in almost all the schools for warmups during the assembly. And yet it’s so effectively helpful.

Stand with your arms by your sides and your feet together.
Hop your feet apart and, at the same time, bring your arms above your head.
Bend your arms slightly at the top.
Quickly hop your feet back together, lowering your arms back to your sides. That’s it.

Do it on a regular basis and a fixed number of rotations.

Doing at-home leg workouts keeps your body fit. But maintaining regularity is essential. Irregular exercise backfires and, in some cases, diminishes your fitness.

The most common mistakes among the amateurs are that they start with heavy and too strenuous workouts, get tired soon, and leave within a short time.

Instead, a regular, light, and well-planned exercise always keeps your body active, energetic, and youthful.

This article has been initially published on Punttis.com and it was translated with permission.