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There are a few fundamentals that should be taken into consideration for home-based beginner leg workouts.
You need to include workouts that are unilateral for equal muscle development along with training laterally to build small stabilisers to prevent injuries. Additionally, you should also include workouts that engage the muscles of the posterior chain, as they are responsible for producing power in the body.
Home-Based Beginner Leg Workouts
We have curated a list of five home-based leg workouts that are beginner friendly. These workouts will effectively target the major muscle groups in your lower body. Let's get started:
1) Lunge
Lunges are one of the most effective home-based leg workouts that are beginner friendly. This exercise targets and engages several muscles in your lower body at once, including quads, hamstrings, and glutes.
Lunges help train your legs independently without completely stimulating the balance of your body, as both feet are pressed to the ground. As you progress in the leg workout, you can also add weight to the lunges for added challenge and resistance.
Regularly using lunges can provide several benefits, including toning your body, building strength in the lower body, strengthening core muscles, boosting overall athletic performance, and more. There are various modifications to lunges you can incorporate with more advanced workouts, such as side lunges, twisted lunges and reverse lunges, among others.
2) Step-ups
Step-ups are a simple yet effective leg workout that engages the muscles of your butt and legs.
When done correctly, they place minimal impact on the knee joints. This exercise activates several muscle groups in the lower body, such as quads, abductors and glutes. Additionally, step-ups are versatile workouts that can correct any imbalance in the lower body by targeting both sides equally.
Generally, it's a great conditioning exercise for the lower body. You can also add dumbbells for a greater load on your muscles.
3) Sumo Squat
The major difference between standard squats and sumo squats is that the latter requires you to adopt a much wider stance of legs, engaging the inner thigh muscles, which are often neglected. This compound exercise is one of the best exercises to strengthen the muscles of the core and legs.
The movement of this exercise helps in improving the balance and stability of the body. It also helps in performing everyday activities with much greater ease, such as climbing, jumping and walking.
This type of squat is very efficient in working several leg muscles, such as abductors, glutes and hamstrings. It's a beginner-friendly workout that does not require any equipment. However, you can also add weight with sumo squats for added resistance and challenge.
4) Calf Raise
Calf raises provide a plethora of benefits and can be done anywhere. The major one is that it helps in building stronger calves, which tends to have a significant impact on our ability to force output, squat heavier and pull weight. That enables you to perform various plyometric exercises and squats with greater ease.
Calf raises also help build better ankle stability and strength. That allows for better stabilisation of the ankle during high-impact movements, such as running. Better ankle stability and stronger calves are beneficial for explosive and strength-based movements.
Overall, calf raises help in strengthening the leg muscles and improving the explosive movements of the lower body.
5) Glute Bridge
The glute bridge is a dynamic leg workout that directly engages and strengthens the two major muscles of the posterior chain: hamstrings and glutes. These posterior chain muscles are crucial for good body posture and to avoid any injuries. This exercise also strengthens and tone your butt and core muscles.
Another major benefit of glute bridge is that it doesn't apply any pressure to the lower back, reducing chances of lower back injuries. It can also be done by people who're unable to do lunges or squats because of knee or hip pain.
Glute Bridge is a beginner workout that can be easily done without any equipment. You can add a barbell to this exercise for an added challenge. It can also boost your sports performance by enabling you to jump higher and sprint faster.
Bottom Line
The aforementioned leg workouts are quite beneficial and should be incorporated in your workout session, as they help in honing the power, strength and balance of your lower body along with building muscle mass.
These workouts target different muscles in the lower body, including quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves along with the core region. You can also add weight to these workouts if you find yourself getting accustomed to the intensity or load of the workout.
