Ask Bomberger: Toning Legs

Today's Ask Bomberger blog comes from one of my twitter followers @_Suzanne__ and she wants to know a little bit about  strengthening and toning legs. Here are some of my favorite exercises for both men and women when it comes to working the legs without too much equipment.

Lateral Lunges
You won't need a lot of weight to feel the burn with this exercise. Performing lateral lunges successfully targets the glutes, quads and adductors, all while helping you maintain good hip mobility. Here's how you perform the movement:

 
- From your starting position with your feet just under your hips, take a large lateral step one to one and a half hip widths wide and firmly plant your foot on the ground.


- Next, shift your body weight over the leg your laterally stepped leg and drop your butt down towards the ground.

- Reach with both hands across your body and down towards either side of your feet as this will help you drop into a deeper lunge.

- Once your reach the bottom, forcefully drive yourself up out of the deep lunge and back to the starting position. Perform 15-20 reps on one side, then repeat on the other side. Try two to three sets at first and build up as you get into better shape!

Single Leg RDL (Romanian Deadlift)
This is an excellent exercise for the glutes and hamstrings, but takes a small degree of skill and balance. The most important thing to remember is this is a glute exercise, not a low back exercise! If you feel it in your lower back right away, this means you are not bending at the hips enough!

- Balance on a single foot with your knee just slightly bent and hold a dumbbell in the opposite hand.

- Hinging at the hips and keeping your spine in a neutral position, lower the dumbbell down towards the balancing foot. Emphasize the stretch in your glutes and hamstrings while keeping your core and back tight.

- Once you reach the point at which you can no longer lower the dumbbell any further (depends largely on flexibility and ability to properly hinge at the hips), drive your heel through the ground, extend your hips by contracting your glutes and stand upright with the dumbbell being brought back up to about waist height.

- Repeat this motion 15-20 more times on one side, then switch and try it on the other. Two to four sets of this exercise will suffice for most people.

Check out this YouTube video at for a brief demonstration of Single Leg RDL's within a full-body workout. You can fast forward to 50 seconds to see the exercise exclusively!


Tempo Prisoner Squats

These squats are a great finisher after your legs are already a little toasty. No weights are necessary!

- Get into a good squat stance by placing your feet about hip to shoulder width apart, toes straight forward and your hands on your head (hence "Prisoner" in the name).

- Lower yourself into a deep squat, keeping your core tight and chest up to the count of "one alligator, two alligator, three alligator, four alligator".

- At the bottom of your squat on the count of "four alligator", slowly transition back into the standing position to another "four alligator" count. This is one repetition.

- Repeat these slow tempo reps anywhere from 10-20 times until your legs feel like they are about to explode. Give yourself 30-45 seconds of rest and repeat another two to three sets.

Photos by Rich Cruse www.RichCruse.com