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Any balanced exercise program will include a full leg workout. Regardless of your fitness level, anyone can benefit from a leg workout. It will increase your overall strength, provide stability and help you in your everyday activities.
A leg workout is a balance of exercises that include the hips, gluts, quadriceps, hamstrings, inner and outer thigh, calves and shins.
When creating a leg workout, you can use many different modalities such as dumbbells, machines, resistance bands, body bars and balls. Strengthening the lower half of the body will create a solid foundation for all exercise and help prevent injury in many sport related activities.
Some examples of exercises for these muscles groups would be: lunges, squats, extensions (quads), curls (hamstrings), calf raises, abduction (outer thigh), adduction (inner thigh), presses (gluts) and raises (hips). Weights, sets and repetitions will vary depending on your level of fitness. It is always a good idea to start with 1 set of each exercise of 10-12 repetitions with a weight that will allow the muscles to fatigue. These larger muscle groups can handle more weight than an area like your arms. Once you are comfortable you can progress to heavier weights, more sets and multiple exercises for each muscle group.
Consulting with a fitness professional for this type of program is highly recommended to help you perfect exercise technique and form. A consultant can also give you exercise options based on your age and ability. This program should be balanced with a lower body routine, cardiovascular conditioning and stretching.
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