Every now and then I have people ask me about my leg workout, and every time it kinda catches me off guard. My legs are nowhere near "finished", and believe me my exercise trousers create a far smoother look than they should! :D
Anyways, I felt like I should show you guys what I do when I actually get the chance to do a lower body workout. This is just the bare basics everyone should know really. There's no shortcut to good legs and bum, just a lot of hard work and good diet. All of these exercises are great with or without extra resistance.
What I find really important with my leg workouts is that I need to maintain good posture. If you let your back drop, you lose form and can really injure yourself. So suck your bellybutton in and keep it there!!
A gentle reminder: Please do not see my form & technique as the way to go, I recommend going through it with a trained PT first! These pics aren't screengrabs off a video, I was literally just holding the pose for 10 seconds while my camera was beeping away. And believe me, especially holding a squat for that long without a warmup was quite interesting!
Squats
People swear by squats, and I really don't blame them! There's so many ways of doing squats, so it's a very versatile exercise to do. You can do three different stages with it - above parallel, parallel and below parallel. As I was feeling rather stiff this morning, I didn't dare to do parallel haha!
Lunges
Forward lunges, backward lunges, side lunges, crossover lunges (backwards and forwards), lunges with rotation... Go nuts! Always remember to keep your knee in line with your ankles, never go over that line or you can do some real damage to both your knees and ankles!
Deadlift
I only started doing these babies about two months ago, but they're definitely my favourite already! This is a great guide for a proper deadlift with a bar, I only have dumbbells to use at home so I didn't actually go quite that deep (like you're meant to). When I use dumbbells I lower the weights to about halfway down my shin and then come back up.
Leg raise
Ok, this one is probably more for the ladies, but this is a killer for your bum! I love sticking a weight in there for the extra resistance, it really gives you a great burn towards the end of the set. I don't recommend trying to lift your leg above parallel, I've noticed that I start arching my back if I try it and especially for me and my back injury it can cause quite a bit of damage. Just be sensible!
On top of these four exercises I do a set on the leg press (if at the gym). I'm currently doing my reps with 60-70kg. I also walk a lot. I've been using my UP band again and I easily hit my 10k steps every day. I walk to work and back, and on top of that I stand up at work all day, and having to kneel down and get back up during some photo shoots when taking pictures of the little ones.
I'm hoping to get more active with blogging again, I really miss it! I've only got two more weeks of uni to go and then I get more free time in the evenings! With summer on its way as well I get a lot more daylight to use, meaning more time to exercise and enjoy the outdoors before it gets dark!
Anyways, I felt like I should show you guys what I do when I actually get the chance to do a lower body workout. This is just the bare basics everyone should know really. There's no shortcut to good legs and bum, just a lot of hard work and good diet. All of these exercises are great with or without extra resistance.
What I find really important with my leg workouts is that I need to maintain good posture. If you let your back drop, you lose form and can really injure yourself. So suck your bellybutton in and keep it there!!
A gentle reminder: Please do not see my form & technique as the way to go, I recommend going through it with a trained PT first! These pics aren't screengrabs off a video, I was literally just holding the pose for 10 seconds while my camera was beeping away. And believe me, especially holding a squat for that long without a warmup was quite interesting!
Squats
People swear by squats, and I really don't blame them! There's so many ways of doing squats, so it's a very versatile exercise to do. You can do three different stages with it - above parallel, parallel and below parallel. As I was feeling rather stiff this morning, I didn't dare to do parallel haha!
Lunges
Forward lunges, backward lunges, side lunges, crossover lunges (backwards and forwards), lunges with rotation... Go nuts! Always remember to keep your knee in line with your ankles, never go over that line or you can do some real damage to both your knees and ankles!
Deadlift
I only started doing these babies about two months ago, but they're definitely my favourite already! This is a great guide for a proper deadlift with a bar, I only have dumbbells to use at home so I didn't actually go quite that deep (like you're meant to). When I use dumbbells I lower the weights to about halfway down my shin and then come back up.
Leg raise
Ok, this one is probably more for the ladies, but this is a killer for your bum! I love sticking a weight in there for the extra resistance, it really gives you a great burn towards the end of the set. I don't recommend trying to lift your leg above parallel, I've noticed that I start arching my back if I try it and especially for me and my back injury it can cause quite a bit of damage. Just be sensible!
On top of these four exercises I do a set on the leg press (if at the gym). I'm currently doing my reps with 60-70kg. I also walk a lot. I've been using my UP band again and I easily hit my 10k steps every day. I walk to work and back, and on top of that I stand up at work all day, and having to kneel down and get back up during some photo shoots when taking pictures of the little ones.
I'm hoping to get more active with blogging again, I really miss it! I've only got two more weeks of uni to go and then I get more free time in the evenings! With summer on its way as well I get a lot more daylight to use, meaning more time to exercise and enjoy the outdoors before it gets dark!
