Tag: hips

Lower Body Exercises for Beginners
Lower Body Exercises for Beginners

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If you are just beginning to exercise, you’ll want upper and lower body exercises for beginners. Starting off slow can help you progress and will help you stay on track with your goals as they won’t seem so difficult to reach!

Advice For Lower Body Exercises
- Exercises for the lower body will help you with your thighs, glutes, hips, and with your calves. Lower body exercises can help you burn fat all over, really. Some exercises are more effective than others but together with a sensible eating plan, you could get great results for your lower body. Make sure that you integrate healthy eating with an exercise plan for the best results possible.
- Always stretch before your workout. Think of your pre-workout stretch as warming up your muscles to make them work better. This will also give you more longevity and faster recovery time after your workout.
- Whichever lower body exercises you do, make sure that you start off with a low number of reps and take 1-2 minute rests between sets. This is especially important when you are a beginner. If you’re doing a circuit in the gym, gym workouts often start with just 5 reps for each exercise and then a rest. The next set might have 8-12 reps but start off slowly. You should also rest between days of strength training. Cardio can generally be done daily but strength training requires rest days for your muscles.
There are a few pieces of low-cost equipment you might want to invest in, including: a kettlebell, a stability ball, jump rope, and some resistance bands. If you can invest in a treadmill, stair climber, elliptical, or another piece of cardio equipment, great, but if not, don’t worry. You can do plenty of beginner lower body exercises and cardio without a lot of expensive equipment.

Here are some good beginner lower body exercises you might want to start doing in order to tone up your lower body.

Cardio

All cardio exercises can equate to working out your upper and lower body. Starting off with walking is good. You could work up to running over time, if wanted, but if you’re sedentary now you’ll want to work up to running gradually.

Inner Thigh Ball Squeeze

Using a stability ball or even a smaller beach ball, hold the ball between your thighs and squeeze repeatedly. This can help really tone your lower body. Exercises like this can be done sitting, standing, or lying down.

Standing Leg Lifts

Standing with resistance bands around your ankles, put your hand on your hips and lift one leg out as if your legs are scissors. The resistance will help build muscle tone from the hip straight down.

Hip Lifts

Use a stability ball and lay on the floor. Dig your heels into the top of the ball while raising your bottom and using your arms for support on the floor or exercise mat. Digging your feet in from a bending position, push out until they’re straight. Then dig and pull them back in. You’ll be rolling the ball along the floor and working out several muscle groups.

If you’re concerned about new and beginner lower body exercises, consider watching some online videos and talking to a trainer.
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March 15, 2012
Leg Exercises For Women – Try Them

Leg Exercises For Women

NeelShakilov / Pixabay

Men and women don’t always look for the same leg exercises to do. Many people think they need a gender specific set of exercises for their legs because they have different goals. Men and women don’t necessarily have the same goals for their desired outcome for their legs.. and leg exercises for women tend to be in an effort to tone the legs, hips, and butt as well as lower abs. Men often look for bulk and muscle while women look for leaner, tight (and maybe even sexy) legs.

Consequently, if you’re a woman who is worried you will do generic leg exercises and wind up with legs like Conan the Barbarian, this is very unlikely to happen. Most exercises for men’s legs can be used as leg exercises for women, too, probably with less weight or resistance.

Tone and Strengthen

Strength training is the fastest way to get toned legs as strength training exercises can help you burn fat fast. A woman’s body composition is such that it would take a heck of a lot of serious training for her legs to look anything like a muscular man’s legs.

Therefore, doing leg exercises, for women and for men will result in toning, building of muscle, and burning of fat. You can do leg exercises with and without weights but don’t be afraid to use weights, even if you are female and want to have a small and slender build.

Walking Lunges and Squats with Dumbbells

Lunges are great leg exercises for women. Squats are great leg exercises for women, too. Add dumbbells and you’ll intensify the workout. Starting with 1 pound weights is a great start.

Kick Boxing

If you want a cardio workout for your legs with a “kick”, Kick boxing benefits for women are numerous. This total body workout does great things for toning your legs. Taking a kick boxing class could be great for building power in your legs and your whole body as well as for increasing your flexibility and range of motion.

Heel Raises

Heel raises really strengthen and tone your legs, especially your calves. All you have to do is raise up onto your tiptoes. Hold for a few seconds and then flatten your feet. Repeat. When you’re ready to take heel raises to the next level, do it on the stairs. Stand backwards on the stairs and back up so the ball of your foot is on the edge and your heel is hanging off the edge of the step. Do heel raises on the steps and you’ll really start to feel it in your legs!

Treadmill on an Incline

Walk on your treadmill on an incline. Try going higher on the scale every few minutes and vary your workout intensity for intervals of higher speeds and inclines, balanced with lower speeds, too. This will keep things more interesting on the treadmill and help you see faster results in your legs.

Walk Uphill

Get off the treadmill and walk uphill. Try walking backwards (being wary of traffic of course) for great leg results, especially in the buns

Leg Exercises for women will result and better looks and conditioning. Try doing it!

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March 5, 2012