OUR TOP 5 FAVOURITE LOWER BODY EXERCISES FOR STRENGTH AND SHAPE!
A great training program SHOULD contain multiple lower body days. The energy demand to perform these, plus the size of the muscle groups, and desire to be stronger and have better shape makes them ESSENTIAL!
You may have a different one, or few, which work better for injuries, niggles, or anything else that may prevent you from performing any or all of the following, but these are our Top 5.
There are a few circumstances and slight modifications that you may need to make to suit your body, but here’s our list…
BB Squats -
The building block of any good training program, BB Squats literally hit everything, from your calves to your shoulders, plus everything in between!
Squats are also very versatile and can be modified or variations used to work differently and give a new training stimulus to the muscles. Tempos, rep ranges, drop sets, rest pause, plus so many more options you can use to achieve a slightly different end goal.
Main muscles worked; quads, glutes (booty), hamstrings, lats, erectors.
Deadlifts -
An excellent edition, if performed well, and these are often butchered by Every Day Joe, and have since been given a very bad name for “hurting people”. Injuries often occur when poor technique, variation or load is selected, so before you remove them from your training program, be sure to have a good coach take a look at your technique or do some very good research.
Main muscles worked; glutes, quads, hamstrings, erectors, lats, traps
Hip Thrusts -
The ULTIMATE Booty builder! Yep, if you’re looking to shape and strengthen your booty, these are a MUST! Loads of different variations you can and should be using to develop a well rounded peach!
From the floor, or off a bench, are both excellent variations which can be used to achieve a great result.
Hip thrusts are also a great exercise to help strengthen your deadlifts, and any other hip hinge exercise to strengthen your lower body.
Main muscles worked; glutes (booty), quads, hamstrings
Lunges -
Some would argue, this exercise should even take top spot. I don’t disagree, but feel it could get more of the spot light in your next training program.
Weighted lunges, or walking lunges are a great way to strengthen EVERYTHING. As we work both joints (knee, hip) we also strengthen both glutes and quads in slightly varied movement patterns.
Variations; walking lunges with DB, BB Reverse Lunges, Split Lunges, even Bulgarian Split Squats are a "lunge style movement pattern.
Main muscles worked; quads/glutes (depending on upper body positioning), some calves. DO THEM! ALL OF THEM!
Romanian Deadlifts (RDL) -
These fall into the same category of “Demonised Exercises For No Good Reason”. Simply because they are often performed poorly and the person receives no positive feedback as a result, only causing pain and no muscular beneficial outcome in terms of training stimulus.
So take your time, focus on “pushing your hips back”, and not just bending forward, and you’ll notice a significant difference.
Main muscles worked; hamstrings, erectors, lats, traps, rhomboids (back)
So, now you know how to bulletproof your lower body, how will you implement them?