Lower Body Blast Workout

Never skip a leg day again! The lower body deserves your attention ─ whether you want to run fast, dance harder or simply feel better in your body, it’s always a good time to give a little more love to your butt, hips, thighs and legs.

Why Lower-Body Strength Is So Important

Many people equate ‘lower body’ with booty, but there’s a lot more to having a strong base. Our lower body is the location of some of the largest and strongest muscles in the body and maintaining them is vital for our overall health.

• Functional movements are actions we take every day, when out grocery shopping or playing with the dog. The lower body contains functional muscle groups that help stabilize during these movements. Working on these muscles helps maintain our agility and balance, which also means avoiding falls and injuries during workouts and our daily activities.

• Lower body strength also plays a huge role in our stamina and resting metabolism. Even if you have no plans to hike a mountain or run a marathon anytime soon, keeping these muscle groups strong helps make everyday exercise easier and elevates your baseline calorie burn.

• A sturdy lower body helps improve athletic performance meaning you can run longer, lift strong and just generally perform better. So much power is generated in the body’s lower-half, dedicating a few days a week to lower body exercises can have a great effect on your overall fitness.

• Strengthening the lower body can also reduce overall pain, especially if you spend a lot of time hunched over a computer or lifting heavy objects. Having a strong and stable base helps improve posture and supports stabilization of the core, which can help massively with bad and neck pain!

• Last but not least, having a strong foundation can psychologically contribute to more feelings of confidence, stability and groundedness. Sure, having a toned booty is trendy at the moment, but there is something to be said for having a powerful base from which you can move through the world.

Get to Know the Muscle Groups  

It can be helpful to visualize the body in two halves for training purposes. You have the anterior chain running along the front and the posterior chain on the opposite side which includes everything along the back.

Quick Training Tips 

• Always remember to start off with a little warm-up (some cardio to get sweating) and some dynamic stretches so your muscles are limber when you start training

• Some equipment that is good to have on hand: resistance band, dumbbell and/or kettlebell

• Rotate the number of sets and weights you do so the body does not get used to the same routine

• Master the basic moves and get your alignment on point before adding weight or upping the number of sets

Movement List & Workout Routine

There are tons of lower body exercises that we can use to keep us on our toes. Many of them can be altered to target specific muscles, such as the hamstrings or glutes, or sped up to throw a bit of cardio into the routine. Try to include both push movements ─ driving through the feet to push the body away from the floor ─ and pull movements which involve squeezing your hamstrings to extend your hips.

Build your own HIIT routine by selecting movements from this list. The number of sets and reps per exercise can vary depending on your fitness level and goals; everyone is different so experiment and find a workout that challenges you.

For a quick lower body blast workout you can try selecting 8 exercises from this list and cycle through them every minute on the minute (EMOM), aiming for 3-4 sets of each exercise with your chosen number of reps in each cycle.

To wrap it up:

Your lower body is your base and foundation, supporting you as you walk, run, jump and live. Some of your largest and strongest muscles are located down here, as are some of the most essential ones for daily movements and general athletic performance. Show the lower body some love and don’t skip leg day!