Leg day is a popular workout method for gaining muscles in your legs. It’s important not to skip leg day, but it’s even more important not to waste the time you spend working out. These methods will ensure you have quality time exercising and give you the power you want in your leg muscles.
Add Weights to Your Workout
Weights are an effective tool for adding intensity and difficulty to your leg workouts. Exercises that require you to lift your legs, such as leg raises or walking up steps, will become more intense with the use of ankle weights to make you push your muscles past their normal limits.
Using a barbell with weights will make exercises such as squats and lunges harder and cause you to focus more on your balance and form to have the most effective movements for your muscles. The extra stress you put on your leg muscles will help you get the most out of leg day, and you’ll build more muscle from the effort it takes to perform those workouts.
Focus on One Leg at a Time
When performing squats, calf raises, or deadlifts, you may rely on one leg more than the other. Although this may be a subconscious act you don’t notice, it will cause an asymmetrical distribution of effort and cause one leg to become stronger. It will help you strengthen your muscles evenly if you perform more workouts that focus on one leg during each set.
Lunges, step-ups, and Bulgarian split squats are great exercises to ensure you focus on one leg at a time instead of using both and relying on one leg more than the other. This separation of leg workouts will allow you to focus better and improve the effort you need to use for one leg, increasing the number of muscles gained.
Use Machines
Exercise machines will give you multiple options for how you wish to work out, and certain machines will help you get the most out of leg day. An exercise bike is a useful machine for strengthening your thighs, quads, and hips, and there are different types of exercise bikes that you can use to change how you ride. They also have resistance settings that will increase the intensity of the workout so that you can push past your limits.
A treadmill is also useful for leg workouts for the calves and ankles. Walking or running on a treadmill will easily fit into your schedule and makes leg day more convenient and versatile.
Leg day is important; like any exercise, it should be efficient. These methods will help you improve how you work out and ensure you have a great leg day with the most gains.
Dianne Pajo is a Certified Personal Trainer based out of the Chicagoland area with a passion for music, combat sports, and animals. She enjoys competing in amateur boxing and kickboxing, but in her other leisure time, you can find her performing music around the city. She is also a dog mom of 2.