The Best Lower Body Strength Exercises

Lower body strength is vital for keeping you fit and active throughout your lifespan. Strong hips and glutes increase your chances of staying injury-free, without back or knee pain or strain. A well-developed lower body makes you stronger and makes each step a little easier. Strengthening your lower body also offers an unparalleled connection to mental toughness. At Wizard Athleisure ^[1], we’re committed to elevating human potential, challenging our limits, and becoming physically, mentally, and emotionally fit. In this article let’s explore the challenges and commitment required to strengthen the lower body.

What Are Lower-Body Exercises?

Lower-body exercises are designed to build strength in the lower back, hips, glutes, and legs. Lower-body exercises include lunges, squats, deadlifts, and more. Exercising your lower body builds foundational strength for everyday movements. Leg exercises also help balance out your workout routine, helping you build muscle, stability, and speed in your lower body. They tend to target the hip flexors, quadriceps, hamstrings, and calf muscles.

We’ve put together a list of essential lower body exercises, most doable anywhere and adaptable with weight or technique tweaks to turn your weak spots into strengths.

Dumbbell Shoulder Squat

The basic squat is another foundational lower body exercise that you should master if you are serious about training the hips, thighs, and glutes. Once you have good form perfected on the squat, add resistance with dumbbells or a barbell.

To perform a dumbbell shoulder squat, start with 2– to 5-pound weights. Once you feel that you can maintain good form, add more weight to challenge yourself.

Start with feet slightly wider than hip distance apart. Rest one dumbbell on each shoulder.
Drop the hips back and down as if you are reaching your glutes toward a chair behind you. The knees will bend but the heels stay planted on the floor. The torso stays tall and strong with the chest open and facing forward.
Continue to lower the hips until the thighs are parallel to the floor (or lower).
Press into your heels to lift the body back to the starting position.
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Deadlift

A deadlift is usually performed with a barbell. If a barbell is not available, it can be performed with dumbbells. As always, learn the movement with proper form without weight before adding resistance.

To prepare for the deadlift, stand tall with feet shoulder-distance apart and place a barbell at your feet. Make sure the weight plates are properly secured with a collar.

Hinge forward at the hips, bending the knees.
Grab the bar with an overhand grip. Hands should be placed about shoulder-width apart.
Engage through the hips, glutes, and core and stand tall lifting the bar as you become fully upright.
Now reverse the process, bending the knees and bringing the hips back to lower the bar. Keep the torso strong and the back straight.
Once the bar touches the floor, repeat the sequence and lift again.
Complete 7 to 10 repetitions.

Hip Thrusts

The barbell hip thrust has become the go-to exercise to train the glutes.

You should carefully set up your weight bench to prepare for the hip thruster. Make sure the bench is no higher than your knees. The long end of the bench should be positioned against a solid surface like a wall so it cannot move while you are lifting.

Place your upper back against the center edge of the bench and place the weight bar across the hips.
Squeeze the glutes and press the bar straight up until the hips are in line with the shoulders and the knees. The bench should support the mid-scapula area. Keep the core tight and maintain a slight chin tuck with your focus down your body (a few inches above the bar).
Slowly lower the bar down until the hips are just a few inches off the floor.
Squeeze the glutes and lift again.
Perform 10 to 12 repetitions.

Barbell Jammer Press

When done without a squat, this total-body workout targets the upper body. But including a squat enhances the difficulty and tones the calves, hamstrings, glutes, and quadriceps. The jammer press requires a barbell and a proper squat should be within your grasp.

A bar should be placed vertically on the floor in front of you to help you prepare for the jammer. A plate should be put on the end closest to your body if you decide to increase weight. The opposite end ought to be fastened to a wall.

Get into a deep squat and cup your palms over the end of the bar to hold onto it.
In order to stand up and move your hips forward in order to straighten your legs, press through your glutes, quadriceps, and hips. Holding the bar’s end is still necessary. When you are almost standing, press the bar up and overhead, keeping your back tall and strong.
When the arms are fully extended, start to move in the opposite direction. To restart, lower the bar and reposition your body so that you are squatting.
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Benefits of Lower-Body Exercises

Lower-body exercises can add cardio to your workout. When practiced in rapid succession, or as a superset workout, lower-body exercises elevate your heart rate to deliver an effective cardio workout.
You can easily add lower-body exercises to home workouts. Many lower-body workouts revolve around bodyweight exercises that require no equipment. You can adapt many weighted exercises to use whatever equipment you have access to at home—such as a jug of water or a resistance band.
Lower-body exercises can improve your athletic performance. Lower-body strength is essential to reaching many fitness goals and improving overall athletic performance. By exercising your lower body regularly, you will improve your coordination, stability, strength, and speed.

Working muscles in your entire lower body, especially the glutes, quads, and hamstrings, is important to build body strength and keep your fitness levels high. Lower body strength training is challenging due to the large groups of muscles involved. However, it is worth the effort when it comes to building a functional and powerful body that is less at risk of injury.

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