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Ankle-weight exercises are extremely useful for triggering weight loss, especially if you’ve been constantly exercising with your body weight. Usually, individuals move from bodyweight exercises to resistance training, but if you want to take a step between them, you should try ankle-weight exercises.
Focus on the following ankle-weight exercises if you want to trigger weight loss using weights above your body weight but below weight plates, dumbbells, or barbells.
5 Ankle-Weight Exercises to Lose Weight
1) Treadmill
It’s well-known that treadmills are one of the go-to machines for cardio and weight loss. Usually, it’s not possible to add resistance such as dumbbells or barbells when you’re on the treadmill.
In such cases, ankle weights come in handy. When you’re wearing ankle-weights, you're adding extra resistance to the overall routine. This will urge the body to burn additional calories to provide energy for the additional efforts.
2) Bicycle Crunches
When you’re thinking of ankle-weight exercises, the idea is to use the ankle-weights for as many muscle groups as possible. While the treadmill helps with quads and calves, it also has some impact on the core muscles.
However, you should focus on an exercise that will specifically target the abdominal muscles. This is where the usefulness of bicycle crunches comes in. Bicycle crunches require you to bring each leg towards your upper body and curl your upper body towards the knees.
Now, ankle-weights will put resistance on the legs which will require you to put in more effort to bring the leg towards yourself, thereby inducing calorie burn.
3) Hamstring Curl
While you’re working on your lower body, you should focus on your hamstrings as well. To do hamstring curls as part of ankle-weight exercises, you need to lay on a mat in a plank position. Next, bring one ankle towards your posterior to replicate a hamstring curl.
It’s important to ensure that the pressure is on your hamstrings and not on your quads and knees. Additionally, you must keep your core stable to maintain proper balance and stability.
4) Straight Leg Donkey Kick
Another important lower body part that you should focus on is your posterior. One ankle-weight exercise that helps with the same is donkey kicks.
To do donkey kicks, you need to get to your forearms and knees so that your back forms a slanting posture. From here, kick your legs backwards in the air so that it forms a straight line with your spine. Next, squeeze your glutes before bringing your leg back to the starting position.
5) StairMaster
Another cardio machine widely used for weight loss is the StairMaster.
Ideally, you cannot add resistance to any StairMaster workout. However, ankle-weights and vests are extremely useful if you want to add more resistance than your bodyweight when you’re doing the StairMaster.
Bottom line
There are several ankle-weight exercises to trigger weight loss, but none of them will work if you’re not in a calorie deficit. The primary idea behind the weight loss process is to be in a calorie deficit so that your body is pushed to burn the stored calories. If your body does not have the motivation to burn the stored calories, you will not lose weight regardless of how much you exercise.
