Leg Day: We have a love/hate relationship but it’s a very rewarding one
Hi ladies, I know many of you have been checking out my blog for my strength training workout routine. I am so excited to know that so many ladies are finding it and being inspired to start lifting weights! That’s so awesome – keep at it and you’ll be so glad you did.
Here is an example of some of my favorite leg day exercise so you can start to work them into your leg day whenever you want to try some new variations or new exercises. Make sure that you do a weight that you are comfortable with until you get your form down, we don’t want any injuries! I do many of these and remember that when it comes to building your butt / glutes it is key to work all different angles and muscles of the lower body! Don’t just do squats..
Favorite Leg Day Exercises for Women
Walking Lunges
Weight Hip Raises
Back Squat with Olympic Bar
Leg Press
Kick backs with cables and ankle straps
Bulgarian Split Squats with weights
Hip Abductors
Weight Box Step Ups
Tips for Leg Day Workouts:
- Wear flat sneakers, the flatter the better! Don’t workout in sneakers with lots of cushion in the heel. The best sneakers for leg day are chuck taylor’s / converse sneakers
- Eat more carbs on leg day since you will need the energy from them do not go low carb on leg day!
- You will likely get light headed on leg day when you do big compound movements like squats or deadlifts, this is normal. The legs are the largest muscle group in your body and when you are working them out your body rushes there, leaving you feeling drained, dizzy and fatigued quick. If needed take a breather! If you get very dizzy sit and put your head between your knees to get the blood back to your head.
- Drink water with electrolytes or BCAA’s / aminos in them. this helps with muscle repair since heavy leg day will be breaking down your muscle fibers
- You will be sore 1-2 days after you lift legs, this is normal. Keep drinking those amino drinks and BCAA powders to aid in muscle repair
- Keep good form, don’t compromise form just to lift heavier weight. Bad form = back problems and you don’t want that!
- If form is tough to keep as you get heavier with squats and deadlifts invest in a weight lifting belt. I have this one. It helps with posture and support.
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Is it normal to LOVE leg day? Looking forward to trying this. I’ll come back and tell you how much I love/hate you when I do this one.
it is, leg day is my favorite because i feel the most challenged and also my biggest body concern is building my glutes and legs. ive been training them hard for two years and love it!
also having suffered a bad hamstring injury leg day helps me to prevent much of the pain i had during the healing and downtime of that.
So, yeah, my Ass is SORE. Which is wonderful to me since I’ve always had a hard time engaging that muscle. I love this routine and can’t wait to see the results.
a sore ass is a good ass.
sore means you broke down the muscle fibers and now they are repairing.
breakage and repair = stronger and stronger!
Great blog! I’m really glad that I found it. I’ve been working out in running shoes but I’ve read elsewhere that you should not wear running shoes on leg day. I haven’t tried to workout in Chuck’s yet. Do you wear them for all of your leg day exercises, including leg presses? Thanks!
Thank you, the flatter the feet the better especially for heavy compound movements like squats and deadlifts. I wear my chucks on days I do those but for other exercises I stick to a flatter nike shoe usually. leg press for example i don’t always plan to wear chucks. but if i am doing squats and deadlifts i do. it puts less arch on the foot and also less lift under the heels.