Leg Workouts at Home

These days people have woken up to the importance of exercises. Among the exercises, leg exercises are necessary, as legs are vital in carrying a person to different places, going up the stairs, etc. When the muscles of the legs are not worked sufficiently, it may cause deep vein thrombosis. Along with it, these exercises also help in toning the leg muscles and keeping your weight under check. You do not have to go to a gym to do leg workouts. Leg workouts can easily be done at home with ease. We will see some leg exercises to do at home, before we turn to leg workouts.

Leg Exercises at Home

Leg exercises can easily be done in the confines of a bedroom, hotel room, a park, school yard, etc. When these leg exercises at home are done correctly, they add more resistance to your workouts.

Lunges
It works most of the muscles in the legs. When you are doing this thigh exercise, it is important you take care of the alignment of the body and ensure that the knee of the leg in front is placed exactly over the ankle.

• Stand with your feet shoulder width apart, take a giant step forward and place your right foot in front of you.
• Lower your torso straight down, until the left leg forms a right angle at the knee and the thigh of the right leg is parallel to the floor.
• Using both your legs, slowly rise up.
• Repeat the exercise on both the legs.

Pliès
This is a wonderful toning exercise for both the outer as well as the inner thighs. At the same time, with this exercise there is less stress on the joints.

• Stand with your feet about 15 to 18 inches apart.
• Take a small step out with each of your feet and stand duck toeing out.
• If you are comfortable, place your hands on your hips. If you are not comfortable, hold the back of a chair for support.
• Keep your back straight and gently lower your body, till both your thighs are parallel to the floor.
• Slowly rise up and repeat the exercise.

Squats
This exercise is well-known for shaping the buttocks and upper thighs.

• Stand with your feet hip width apart and place your arms on your sides.
• Keep your back straight and slowly lower your buttocks, as if you were about to sit on a chair.
• Lower yourself as far as you can and then slowly rise up.
• Repeat the exercise for desired results.

Heel Raises
Often it is seen that people work their legs, but forget about the calf muscles. This exercise will work the calf muscles. The beauty of these muscles is that they respond to strengthening very quickly and you will notice the results faster.

• Stand with your feet hip width apart.
• Raise your body up on your toes and hold the position for a few seconds.
• Lower your body to repeat the exercise.
• If you want to increase the intensity of the exercise, you can do single leg raises at a time.

Seated Butterfly
This is an exercise, which must become a part of leg workouts for women, as they tend to have heavy thighs. It will work the inner thighs.

• Sit on an exercise mat with your back straight, bring the soles of your feet together and pull them as close to your body as you can.
• Apply pressure on your thighs and try to push your thighs towards the floor.
• Hold in the position for 20 seconds, release and repeat the exercise.

Good Leg Workout at Home

We have just seen some of the leg exercises, now we will see a leg workout sample.

Exercise Name	Number of Sets	Number of Repetitions
Lunges	2	12
Squats	2	12
Dead Lifts	3	10
Calf Raises	15	3

Before you start doing any of the leg workouts at home, it is important you warm up well. Cardiovascular exercises, like walking exercise, running and jogging, step aerobics exercises, etc. are also some of the exercises which will help in working out the legs. There are also a number of resistance band exercises, which can also be included in your leg workout. If you feel pain of any sort when you are doing the exercises, consult your trainer.