Here’s a Great 10-Minute Lower Body Workout You Can Do at Home
If you’re working out from home, you may be wondering how to target your booty and legs for an effective workout. For instance, you might not have weights at home or access to machines as you would in a gym or workout studio.
Yet, you can totally use bodyweight alone to strengthen and lean out those muscles, where you can build greater fitness gains without any equipment necessary. Building strong muscles in the legs and glutes is so important, as they power your day-to-day movement and are such a large, hard-working muscle group.
You can do squats and lunges, as well as some plyometric moves (when you jump in the air!), to get that heart rate up and burn that lower body without picking up one weight at all.
Here is a great 10-minute lower body circuit from Kristine Kubat, CPT and an instructor at Shadowbox in Chicago and at SoulCycle.
30-Second Squats With Calf Raise
What makes this great? You are working your glutes and legs with the squats and the calf raise adds a little bit of extra “squeeze” on the muscles, too. That will really hit the calves, especially too. To make it harder and add resistance to your thighs and glutes, you can use a resistance band for the squat and raise.
Stand with your chest proud and feet shoulder width apart. Toes face forward. Sit back like you are lowering yourself into an imaginary chair. Drive through your heels to a standing position, squeezing the glutes at the top and lifting your heels off the ground until you are balancing on the ball of your foot to engage the calves. Lower your back down to starting position to complete 1 rep.
This move primarily targets the glutes, thighs, hamstrings and calves
30-Second Reverse Lunge, Right / 30-Sec Reverse Lunge, Left
Trying to sculpt your legs and glutes? Lunges are great, and they help you work one leg at a time to really tone and lean out. Plus, you can hold a heavy object (a book? Wine bottle? Weight if you have?) to add resistance, or add in a jump for cardio work, where you will do split lunge jumps, alternating the legs one to the other. Or you can even do pulses, which will add extra challenge to the muscles by slowing down to dig deeper with the pulsing motion.
Keep your upper body straight, with your shoulders back and relaxed. Step backward with one leg, lowering down until both knees are bent at about a 90-degree angle. Try to keep the upper body straight and try to keep your front knee over your ankle as you lunge back.
The primary muscles worked are the quads, thighs, and glutes.
30-Second Jump Squats
Get that heart rate up fast with squat jumps! You can add in resistance by including the resistance band or holding an object, too. Or you can even do 180 squat jumps, by spinning around with each jump for added challenge. You can also do one squat jump, two pulses, and repeat. There is such variety and you target all areas of the booty and legs!
Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Start by doing a regular squat, then explode up into a jump, pressing off the balls of the feet. Land with soft, bent knees into the squat position.
The muscles targeted are the quads, hamstrings, glutes, lower back, and even abdominals.
Then take 30 seconds of rest here, advises Kubat. This lets you bring your heart rate down for a moment!
30-Sec Lunge with a Kickback, Right / 30-Sec Lunge with a Kickback, Left
Again, this uses lunges to work the legs and booty, but with a kickback potion, which can work more flexibility and stability, for that added challenge and benefit. You can add a jump to make it more cardio based, or just go slow with the kickback motion to feel the burn and work on the balance aspect.
Lunge back with one leg. Drive through your front heel as you balance on that front leg, lift the back leg straight behind you and squeeze your glute. Try not to lean way forward as the back leg lifts.
The primary muscles targeted are quads, thighs, and glutes.
30-Sec Side Lunge, Right / 30-Sec Side Lunge, Left
This one is great for targeting the legs through a side-ways motion, so you are really hitting that outer part of the booty too. And it manipulates direction, so it adds that challenge of lowering down towards one side at a time to target those larger muscle groups.
Stand tall with your feet parallel and shoulder-width apart with your weight in your heels. Take a big step to the side while keeping the torso proud, and lower until the knee of your lunging leg is at ninety degrees, keeping your other leg straight.
The primary muscles targeted are glutes, quads and hamstrings.
Take those 30 seconds of rest to get ready for round two!
Repeat again for ten minutes total! Or repeat a few more times, depending on however long you’d like that workout to be!
