Top 4 Bodyweight Leg Exercises That Will Build Great Legs
In this article, I will discuss the top 4 bodyweight leg exercises that will build great legs. Legs are the foundation of our body and we should not ignore developing them because 60% of muscle are in our lower body..!!
Hey, everyone, I hope you are having a great time working out your arms and building them.
Today’s article is most important one than any other as the body part about which we would discuss is legs.
Legs are the most important piece of muscles that if not build would have an impact on the whole body.
Well for your information legs include muscles like calves, quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes & hip flexors.
These are the major muscles that are present in the body & are also the most important ones.
If you are the person that is shying away from working on your legs then you are missing massive upper body gains!!
Yes, you heard me right if you skip leg workouts then you are at a risk of skipping high testosterone days.
According to studies, they have derived results that working your lower body muscles increased the amount of testosterone production.
The reason is that your lower body has biggest muscle groups such as your glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings that when used need a lot amount of energy to repair and lots of macros as well as micronutrients which are taxing your CNS.
So even if you are not having any gym equipment then also you can build your legs through the bodyweight leg exercises.
These bodyweight leg exercises that I am going to discuss are the best bodyweight leg exercises that have worked for me and I am definitely sure that they will work wonders for you too.!!
And if you are a person that is overweight then I recommend you to do more of leg workouts that increase the frequency of your leg workouts.
The reason is that leg workouts raise the levels of testosterone which is helpful to reduce fat and increase amount of lean muscle mass & reduce cortisol levels.
So here are the 4 best bodyweight leg exercises to increase testosterone:
1) Body weight Squats:
Well, you cannot deny the benefits of squats.
They help you build overall lower body and help you to overcome lower back issues and knee issues too if you do them correctly.
Many say that squats are not the best exercise to grow your legs however you will find that these people themselves have built massive legs through squats or else they are just talking b.s.
If you are a newbie to the exercise of squats then I recommend you to firstly focus on the form rather than pumping out reps that might cause you more issues.
And for those who already know how to squat focus on pumping out the maximum amount of reps with the best form.
How to perform bodyweight squats:
Select a stance that is just shoulder width apart and points your toes a bit outward as it will ensure that you have knee flexibility and hip mobility too.
Now you can use a towel to hold it with your hands to maintain stability while performing the movement.
Start lowering down your body by unlocking your hips.
Don’t bend forward too much or else you won’t be able to hit a good depth.
Let your knees travel ahead even if they go ahead of your toes, don’t worry if they travel ahead of toes as it will help you hit great depth.
As soon as you hit depth that is just below parallel start squeezing your glutes to come back up and lock them fully at the top.
Repeat all the above steps in the sync that I told you to perform another rep.
Now you can perform any amounts of sets and reps as per your fitness goals. This thing I say is because the actual muscle that should work is your mind.
If you have a goal to build endurance and if you want it so bad then you will find a way to get to that.
If however, you want to build strength in your legs try holding static positions on different parts of the squats that are while ascending and descending.
2) Bodyweight Jump squats:
While squats are the best exercises to build great legs however if the amount of resistance if kept same then your muscles won’t grow!!
So jump squats is a great exercise to provide huge resistance to build strength in your legs.
However, this is a bit difficult exercise than a standard squat one.
This exercise requires bit high hip mobility to perform the movement as it is a very much of a dynamic movement.
Also, you want to firstly focus on the form of this exercise and build the muscle firing pattern of the movement.
How to perform body weight jump squats:
The first step is to start sitting your glutes back.
Now you can also grab a towel for having stability.
Let your knees travel as far as they can in front and opening up your legs at your inner pelvic.
Let your body sit down till you hit just below parallel depth or below your knee caps.
Then from here, you need to squeeze your glutes and your quads and take a jump as high as you can.
Now, as soon as you land on your feet you should again follow the above steps that get into the hole and jump again.
You need to make sure that you are mobile at your hips and strong at your lower back.
Always keep your back tight and your torso a bit up.
The major muscles that will be targeted will be glutes, hamstring, quadriceps, lower back, calves and not to mention your abs.
If you just want to burn calories then you can do only jump squats and feel the burn after your first set.
If you want to build strength then you better do 5 sets of 8 reps and add weight to your hands to progressive overload your muscles.
If you only want to build endurance then you should do at least 5 sets of 15reps.
3) Body weight jumping lunges:
This exercise if done correctly can reap you great quad, calves benefits as well as hamstring benefits too.
This exercise needs more mobility in your hips, as well as your hamstrings, should be losing so you can have the benefits of this exercise.
How to do body weight jumping lunges:
This exercise is same as your standard lunge exercise however you just change your leg position by jumping and continuously attack your lower body.
So you can start this exercise by taking any leg first.
Stand straight and take your one leg forward and one back and touch your knee of the leg behind slowly as you sit down.
Start coming up and take a jump and switch the legs and focus on this alternating process.
Now you will feel that the leg in the front will feel the quadriceps and glutes working and hamstrings and quads and calves in the leg behind.
By switching legs, you will target both the legs and all the muscle groups in your lower body.
Try keeping your torso as upright as possible and keep your abs tight during the exercise.
Also, don’t bang your knees on the floor or else you will injure it before you build it.
You can do as many sets as you can depending on your fitness goals.
4) Single leg bodyweight calf raises:
This exercise is the best exercise to build your calves as such no one likes small calves.
If you are a beginner then you firstly start practicing double leg calf raises and then transition over to single leg calf raises.
However, the truth about bodyweight exercises is that the amount of resistance could be limited and you need to increase resistance to build skeletal muscles.
As Arnold Schwarzenegger had small calves at first he went to his mentor Reg Park to find out what he was doing wrong as his calves weren’t growing.
As soon as they started working out together Arnold saw that Reg Park was doing 900 pounds on calf raises while Arnold was only doing 400 pounds.
So he increased the weight he could lift and he got the calves that he wanted.
How to do single leg bodyweight calf raises:
Lift your one leg and focus on raising your another leg feet as high as you can to have the maximum amount of stretch and start coming down fully till you feel a deep stretch.
While don’t lose tension while doing this exercises.
Your calves have great endurance and strength as they are used very frequently.
Keep tension and try to do as many reps as you can until you are not able to stretch your calves fully.
However, if you want them to be bigger I recommend you to slowly shift to weights to build more muscle and reduce fat.
I hope that this article is will provide all the bodyweight leg exercises to build your lower body and make those gains.
Well, this is it for this blog post.
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