What Do Lower Body Workouts Target?
When you tackle a lower body workout, you’ll be focusing mostly on leg workouts that strengthen your thighs and calves . However, a lower body workout can also be great for strengthening your hips, glutes, and core, as well as stabilizing your knee and ankle joints[1].
Building lower body strength is key to helping you move through your day without pain and stiffness[2]. It can also help you achieve your other workout goals. Do you want to train for a marathon? You’ll definitely need to build up your leg muscles. Do you want to start endurance training? It’s hard to do if your legs and glutes get tired before your heart rate goes up. To get started, try a lower body workout from the list below.
10 Great Lower Body Workouts
This will give you an overview of some workout combinations that will help you build lower body strength using your own body weight. In the next section, we’ll go deeper and give you an overview of each major exercise.
1. The Starter Workout
3 sets of 8-12 reps of:
Squat Single Leg Deadlift Glute Bridge
(30 sec to 2 min rest between each set)
2. The 7-Minute Workout
3 rounds of 30 seconds of each exercise:
Walking Lunges Quarter Squat Step Up Single Leg Deadlift
(1 min rest between each round)
3. The Unilateral Workout
4 sets of 16 reps of:
Reverse Lunges Single Leg Deadlift Skater Squat Single Leg Glute Bridge
(30 sec to 1 min rest between each set)
4. The Endurance Workout
2 sets of 20-50 reps of:
Squat Walking Lunge Single Leg Deadlift Glute Bridge
(1-2 min rest between each set)
5. The Back-to-Back Lower Body Workout
5 rounds of 10 to 20 seconds of each exercise:
Skater Squat Step Up Single Leg Deadlift Single Leg Glute Bridge Quarter Squat
(30 min rest between each round)
6. Strength Lower Body Workout
5 to 10 sets of 4 reps of:
Walking Lunge Single Leg Deadlift Squat
(30 sec to 2 mins of rest time between sets)
7. Glute Burner Workout
4 sets of 10-30 reps of:
Walking Lunge Single Leg Deadlift Single Leg Glute Bridge Quarter Squat
(1 min of rest time between sets)
8. The Advanced Lower Body Workout
3 rounds of 20 seconds of:
Squat Walking Lunge Skater Squat Reverse Lunge Glute Bridge Single Leg Deadlift
(2 mins of rest time between sets)
9. The Quick Lower Body Workout
2 sets of 10 reps of:
Reverse Lunge Step Up Single Leg Deadlift
10. The 100 Repetition Challenge
2 sets of 50 reps on each leg of:
Walking Lunge Single Leg Deadlift
(4 mins of rest time between sets)
Lower Body Workout Exercise Breakdown
Here’s the breakdown of the lower body exercises[3] that you found in the workouts listed above.
1. Squat
Place feet hip-width apart or a little wider. Your toes should be pointed slightly out, arms out in front of you. Sit into your heels until your thighs are parallel to the floor. Drive through the heels, return to the starting position, and repeat.
2. Walking Lunges
A lunge is a complex movement that focuses mostly on thigh and knee strength, but it also gets into the glutes and core. The walking lunges are a harder version of a split squat, which is stationary. It then adds the component of stepping and keeping balance, which engages the gluteus medius, as well as allowing a larger range of motion.
3. Reverse Lunge
A reverse lunge is very similar to the split squat, but instead, after every rep, you are returning to the starting position and stepping back. By reverse stepping, you are allowing for more emphasis on the hamstrings and gluteal muscles as opposed to the quadriceps muscles in a forward stepping lunge.
4. Quarter Squat
A quarter squat is the top ¼ movement of a squat. This will work mainly the gluteal muscles as it emphasizes the hip extension and not a lot of range of motion on the quadriceps.
5. Skater Squat
A skater squat is a unilateral variation of the squat, this squat really engages the gluteus medius and hamstrings as it works unilateral stability and hip flexion, which fires up both the hamstrings and glutes.
6. Step up
The step up is the greatest balance of getting the glutes and quadriceps muscles firing. Doing steps up during a lower body workout will not only get the glutes going, but the quadriceps as well.
7. Glute Bridge
Glute bridges are a great way to nearly isolate the glutes and build a great butt. This entire movement works through hip extension, which the main movement of the gluteal muscles.
8. Single Leg Glute Bridge
Single leg glute bridge ensures that we are evenly building the glutes and not relying too heavily on our dominant leg and symmetrical butt.
9. Single Leg Deadlift
Single leg deadlifts engage the entire booty and hamstrings, especially the gluteus medius due to its unilateral stability property. This is a great way to spice up some routine deadlifts and engage the core while you’re at it.
Before and After Working Out
Before engaging in any physical activity, consult a doctor if you have not worked out in years. However, if you want to go at it without consulting a doctor, start slow and build your way up. Even if you’re doing an at-home workout, use dynamic stretching or some light jogging[4] as a warm up before starting the lower body workouts. Try these quad stretches to get started: Finally, at the end of the lower body workout, use static stretching to reduce injuries and to calm down your heart rate gradually.
Final Thoughts
Completing a lower body workout can help you look and feel great, but it can also help you engage more fully with your daily activities and keep you healthier in the long run. Get started with any of the above exercises today.
More on Strengthening the Lower Body
8 Leg And Butt Workouts To Reshape Your Lower Body Reverse Plank To Strengthen Your Core And Lower Body 10 Full Body Exercises That Get You the Most Bang For Your Buck
Featured photo credit: Benjamin Klaver via unsplash.com
