DON'T SKIP LEG DAY!
BLOG BY FITNESS TRAINER SHANICE ROYCHELLE
Have you ever heard the term “Don’t skip leg day”. It’s a running joke in the fitness “community” due to mostly men skipping leg day and I am not joking it's a real epidemic. But now here's the thing leg day is not only important to look balanced but also there are a lot of health benefits that go along with adding a leg day routine into your week.
In turn, adding a leg day into your routine promotes functional stability in your knees, but not only that your legs are your biggest muscle so training your lower body will require more work from your heart and your lungs, which require more energy, that means your body will be burning more calories. If you are on a weight loss journey, that is something to keep in mind. In addition to growing your hamstrings and glutes, you also decrease lower back pain and I can adhere to that.
Not only is it beneficial for health, but just think how much easier doing the simple things in your everyday life will be. For instance, if you're cleaning and you need to move some furniture around and out of motor memory you do it and realize it was easier than before. So in good spirits in not wanting to look like a chicken don't skip leg day. If you struggle with choosing exercises and are not sure what will work for you and your body type, especially with so much information that's out there. you're not quite sure what to utilize, below I will list some basic leg exercises I have been doing for the past couple of years that have worked for me as well as my workout partner I have trained with that also has different body types than me.
1. Squats- Can be done on Smith Machine, free weight bar, squat rack, or weightless.
2. Lunges- Can be done with weightless, dumbells or a free weight bar.
3. Hamstring curl machine
4. Leg Press machine
5. Goblet squat- Can be done with dumbells
6. RDL’s(romaine deadlifts)
7. Hip Thrust- can be done with a barbell or dumbells
I will talk more about what these workouts are and how you can achieve them in my upcoming blogs.