Today I’m going to show you how to build leg muscle without weights. I have some great tips for getting a good home workout for your lower body completed in less than 30 minutes. Add to the short time to get this done and that fact that you won’t need a single piece of exercise equipment and this is going to be some keeper type stuff. Here we go.
The first thing we need to do is warm up and that can be done a lot of ways. You can do a general whole body warm up like jogging, jumping jacks or skipping. This brings the whole systems heat up a couple notches and gets you ready to groove. Another way to warm up is what I prefer. That is to incorporate the general body warm up into the fact that I am doing specific movement prep that emphasizes the muscles that I will be working.
Today we will be doing bodyweight squats, lunges and specific hamstring work. Because of this, I could do a warm up that involved slowly working into the bottom squat position holding onto something and working out the tight pieces and generating heat at the same time. I would also go into a lunge without my knee on the ground and work different stretches in this “working” position.
Once everything feels ready to go, it’s time to do the structured workout and here it is. For the exercise form, you can google almost any exercise on youtube and if you cannot find it there, just drop me an email and I’ll sort it out for you.
Jumping lunges super setted with rocket jumps followed by a timed reverse bridge for 30 seconds.
The sets and reps go like this. Do 15 jumping lunges per leg followed immediately by 15 rocket jumps then proceed to lie on your back and elevate yourself with only your heels and shoulder blades (upper back in reality). The further you put your legs away from your gluteus, the most intense the hamstring contraction. After you finish all that, then rest up to a minute if you need it. After your rest, repeat that circuit again at 12 on everything (except the reverse bridge of course because that’s timed), then for 10/8 and 6. That’s it. You’re done.
Here’s how to do those jumping lunges and also throw in the squat:
You should be pretty toasted after that but if not, there is more. This is just the beginning of the fun! If you found that too challenging, there are also easier progressions to get you to the home leg workout you just saw. This gives you a great starting point though to see what you can accomplish without leaving the house.
One Of My Favorite Advanced Bodyweight Leg Exercises
I want to give you one of my favorite advanced bodyweight leg exercises now so you can use in a home workout routine that I will also give you. The exercise is called the single leg squat and requires only your bodyweight and no exercise equipment. It’s sometimes called the pistol squat or simply pistols as well.
I don’t know if it’s that people are tired of commercial gyms or the fact that people are so short of time that they can’t make it to the gym but more and more people want to workout these days without equipment and in whatever location they find themselves. I think that’s great because the more you can make exercises fit your life style, the more likely you’ll keep at it long term.
Previously in the above no equipment, bodyweight exercises only leg workout, I mentioned the jumping lunges and rocket jumps done in a super set fashion so now we’ll cover something a little more challenging. Single leg squats which are often called pistol squats.
Using Pistol Squats To Build Leg Muscle Without Weights
How do you do them? Well, in explanation is sounds easy, however actually getting good at them takes a lot of practice and extra work on flexibility and functionality. In other words, when you can do single leg squats… well your body will be working the way it should be. Strong and flexible. (Here’s A Full Pistol Squat Tutorial)
The one leg squat looks a lot like the roller skating move called shooting the duck. You stand on one leg and then put your other leg out to the front. Like you were doing a front kick. From there, sit back heavy into your heals and lower as low as possible. I told you the explanation was easy. It’s just actually being able to do it that is hard.
We’ll gear the workout towards getting stronger by doing 5 sets of 5 repetitions. Most people will not be able to do a ton of these to start. If you are strong, use your rep range required.
Do these at whatever depth you are capable of at this point in time. Perhaps pick a stair on your stair case or if you have a solid low coffee table. Something of that sort. As you are able to achieve the 5 sets of 5 repetitions without excessive difficulty, find something lower. Carry on this way until you can go gluteus to the basement.
Initially when you first start you may want to alternate legs. Do one repetition right and then one left to allow each leg a small rest between repetitions. This way you can move to all five in an unbroken set. This is a means of progressive resistance before dropping the depth of the single leg squat.
You can also build up to the single leg squat with deck squats. I will be covering them on my youtube channel shortly. There are a ton of ways to get better at the single leg squat depending on what the issues are with your body, knees or strength level and you can find that covered here.
How The Pistols Join The Workout
Now the perfect combo I’ve found for building leg mass at home with bodyweight exercises and no equipment is this:
Do the 5×5 pistols… then the workout I described before it in this article. The part with the jumping lunges and rocket jumps. The 5×5 pistols develop strength and the higher reps and volume take care of the mass.
The goal is to get to the point where you can do 4 sets of 6-8 on the pistol squats. Then you will need to get a weight vest or hold a weight plate to add resistance. Another option would be to do jumping pistols… which is kind of sick. But sick AWESOME!