Not only do your thighs contain the biggest muscles in your body, meaning the greatest caloric burn when strengthening them, but they’re also what carry you around all day!
For these reasons, we focus a lot of our workouts on building these hugely important muscles. However, when doing leg exercises, it’s easy to focus on quad-dominant exercises and forget about your hamstrings, inner/outer thighs, and glutes! Therefore, we’ve pulled three of our favorite thigh exercises to help strengthen and round out all aspects of your upper leg.
Do 45 seconds of each and repeat 4 times for a total of 9 minutes.
Squat + Calf Raise
Beginning with your feet hips-width distance apart, squat down to a 90-degree angle, keeping your weight in your heels, a proud chest and your knees directly above your ankles. Drive through both heels as you return to a standing position and then press up onto your tip toes. Slowly lower your heels back down and repeat.
Alternating Hamstring Reaches
Begin standing on your right foot as you send your left foot back behind you and simultaneously reach your left hand to your right toes. Remember to keep a flat back, your hips square and a micro-bend in your standing leg. With your body acting as one lever, drive through your right foot as you slowly come up to a standing position. Repeat on your left leg.
Squat Jacks
Begin in a standing position with your hands at your sides. Jump your feet out into a wide squat position, squat hovering your hands just above the ground with a proud chest. Jump your feet back together in a standing position and repeat.
By SISSFiT
This article can be found in our Fall 2018 issue
