Home workouts are just as effective as workouts in the gym. To pump up a girl’s legs at home, it is not necessary to have exercise equipment, a stepper, or use a barbell. Leg training at home can be done using only the weight of your body. Some exercises may require the use of a chair. The main thing is to have good motivation, and also to know which movements best work the gluteal, calf, internal and posterior thigh muscles, as well as quadriceps.
Is it possible to pump up your legs without weights?
To quickly increase strength, you really need to work with heavy weights, but for pumping muscles this is not necessary.
According to the meta-analysisStrength and Hypertrophy Adaptations Between Low- vs. High-Load Resistance Training: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Scientific Research shows that muscles grow equally well when lifting heavy weights for low reps as when doing exercises of 12–40 reps with light or no implements.
But there is one condition: the exercises must be done until the muscles fail or close to it. In other words, at the end of the set you should have strength left for no more than 1-2 repetitions.
To sufficiently fatigue the muscles, you can use several options:
- Choose challenging exercises. For example, squat on one leg or exclude the relaxation phase.
- Add weight. To do this, you will have to buy compact equipment for home training, for example, expander bands with different resistance. You can also make weights from improvised materials.
- Add jumps . Due to the explosive component, the muscles will tire much faster. OverviewEffects of plyometric vs. resistance training on skeletal muscle hypertrophy: A review of studies found that plyometric exercises are just as effective for hypertrophy in beginners and amateurs as strength training with weights.
- Combine movements into supersets . Almost all leg exercises involve opposing muscle groups. For example, when you go down into a squat, the muscles on the back of your thigh tighten, and when you go up, the muscles on the front of your thigh tighten. If you perform two movements on different muscle groups without rest, you can fatigue the muscles more and pump them up faster.
Recommendations for training
To pump up your legs at home, we recommend that men follow these tips:
- Before each lesson, stretch your ankle, knee, and hip joints.
- Avoid stretching your leg muscles before strength training, as this will reduce the effectiveness of the exercise.
- Recommended training volume: 5-6 exercises of 3-4 sets of 8-12 repetitions (except for calf raises and “chairs”).
- Recovery pause between approaches – 2 minutes, between exercises – depending on how you feel.
- Do not exercise through pain (especially in joints). If you experience discomfort, it is better to postpone the lesson.
- Try to choose the weight of the equipment so that the last 2 repetitions of the set are difficult.
- Between sets, massage your thighs and calves to avoid clogging the muscles with blood.
- Number of classes – 1 time per week (we recommend combining leg training with classes for the back, arms, abs, and chest).
What exercises will help pump up your legs without iron?
We will list the basic movements that allow you to properly load your muscles without any weight.
Bulgarian split squats
Photo: Alexander Starostin
The movement perfectly pumps the front side of the thigh and provides a good load on the buttocks. Stand with your back to a chair or other low support and place the toe of one foot on it. You can put your hands on your belt or fold them in front of your chest - whichever is more convenient.
Squat down until the thigh of your supporting leg is parallel to the floor. If your heel comes off, move slightly away from the support. As you come out of the squat, make sure that your knee does not roll inward.
Pistol squats
The exercise perfectly loads the hip flexors, quadriceps, adductors, gluteus maximus and gluteus medius, and develops joint mobility and a sense of balance.
Raise your straight leg low from the floor and squat on the other until the knee joint is fully bent. Make sure that the heel of your free leg does not touch the floor, and that the heel of your supporting leg does not come off it.
Rise up from the squat, keeping your knee from rolling inward, and repeat the exercise. You can stretch your arms in front of you - this will make it easier to maintain balance.
This is a fairly complex movement and may take you weeks to master. Luckily, there are many extension exercises for pistols that will also work your hips and glutes great. Choose an option for your level from the article below.
Watch how to learn how to perform pistols
