leg exercises
These basic exercises are simple but very effective for toning your legs and buttocks anywhere in your home.
The legs are an essential part of any type of physical activity. Keeping your legs in shape is within everyone’s reach. It’s all a matter of performing some simple leg exercises focused on the different muscle groups that make up the lower body, to strengthen, tone and lose weight in the legs, without having to leave the house and without any type of equipment.
For those who have little sports habit, these five exercises can be done twice a week in three sets of ten repetitions. For those who already have a more established habit, four sets of 15 repetitions would be ideal. Between exercise and exercise it is advisable to rest between 30 and 60 seconds depending on each body.
Here are five easy leg exercises.
1. Basic squat
The squat is one of the best-known and most useful exercises when it comes to working the legs without using a lot of space or equipment. This simple movement consists of bending the knees until they form a 45º angle. A well-executed squat strengthens the legs, glutes , and many other muscles in the lower body, as well as helping improve mobility and keeping joints and bones in good shape. But poorly executed can cause problems in the lower back and knees, so it is very important to execute them correctly.
It is important to start from a comfortable standing position with your feet shoulder-width apart and gradually proceed to a movement such as sitting on a chair while keeping your abdominal muscles engaged and your legs tense.
Avoid pulling your knees in in the process or putting your body weight too far forward or back. As a general rule, the knees should not exceed the balls of the feet when performing the flexion, but people with good ankle mobility may feel comfortable in this position and the exercise would not be poorly executed.
You can repeat this exercise for 20 times.
2. Sumo Squat
This variation of the previous exercise helps to focus the work on the gluteal muscles and is performed with the same technique as the basic squat but with the feet further apart. As its name suggests, the sumo squat is inspired by the position sumo wrestlers adopt in their bouts.
During knee flexion it is important to keep your back straight and contract your abdomen and buttocks to activate the muscles you want to work on. When descending, it is important that the knees do not pull in, as they do when ascending to avoid injury to this joint. Breathing is also important in this exercise, we must take in air when going up, hold it during the descent and expel it when going up.
This exercise can be performed with weights to intensify the work and add upper trunk activation in muscles such as the lats, trapezius, shoulders, or arms as the weight, which is usually a kettlebell, is held with arms extended between the legs.
Set your goal at 15 repetitions.
3. Abduction with elastic band
This exercise strengthens the inner thighs and is based on performing leg extensions from a seated position. This movement can be performed simply with the resistance offered by the body or add a short rubber or band to add resistance to the movement and thus work with greater intensity.
During the execution of the movement it is important to keep the back straight, without curving it, to avoid lower back problems and to focus the effort on the buttocks and on the inner and outer part of the thighs.
Perform 15 repetitions.
4. Lunges
Lunges are an exercise in which you step forward or backward and bend your knees until the knee behind you approaches or touches the ground. There are many variations of this movement depending on the muscle on which you want to focus the work, but the basic one focuses the work on quadriceps and glutes and consists of lowering the straight knee to the ground.
From an upright position, step forward keeping your torso as straight as possible and perpendicular to the ground throughout the movement, avoiding rocking as much as possible. Once the front foot is supported, proceed downwards, avoiding that the forward leg does not bend more than 90º at the knee.
Do 20 repetitions with each leg.
5. Calves
You can also perform a series of exercises to strengthen your legs by stretching and contracting your calves. To do this, stand up and lean on a chair or wall and rise supporting only the balls of your feet.
Once on your toes, hold still for 20 seconds.
