A Dumbbell Leg Workout That’ll Target Your Quads, Hamstrings, and Glutes

Pumping out limitless squats will not be the one—or finest—option to problem your decrease physique. That’s why a stable dumbbell leg exercise will embody workout routines that hit all the key compound motion patterns.

“The principle factor is, you desire a hip hinge, a squatting sample, a hip bridge sample, and hip abduction,” ACE-certified private coach Sivan Fagan, founding father of Robust With Sivan, tells SELF.

Although this would possibly sound difficult, you’re in all probability truly fairly acquainted already with examples of those motions. A hip hinge is a vertical motion the place you bend your knees barely, flex at your hips, and ship your butt backward (like in a dumbbell Romanian deadlift or a barbell good morning). A squatting sample entails flexing on the hips and the knees as you decrease your butt downward, as when you had been sitting in a chair (like in a goblet squat or a lunge). With a hip bridge, you lengthen your hips from a horizontal place (like a hip thrust or glute bridge), whereas with hip abduction, you progress your leg laterally away from the center of your physique (like with a facet lunge or side-lying leg increase).

By incorporating these useful motion patterns into your leg exercise, you’ll find yourself difficult muscle tissues within the entrance of your decrease physique, like your quads, and at the back of your physique, like your glutes and hamstrings. You’ll additionally goal the small muscle tissues that make up your facet butt—an necessary space for guarding in opposition to damage that’s usually missed in energy coaching. Put all of this collectively, and also you’ll get a complete lower-body routine that may enable you construct balanced energy.

Within the leg exercise Fagan created for SELF beneath, getting stronger in all these areas goes to be the secret. And in doing so, it’s possible you’ll not have to get as sweaty as you would possibly assume—slowing down and actually honing in on the actions goes to be extra necessary than velocity right here. Keep in mind, a energy exercise doesn’t have to develop into a cardio session!

“For those who’re specializing in velocity or doing as many reps as potential in a sure period of time and solely taking a little bit little bit of time to relaxation between units, you’re not going to have the ability to elevate as a lot weight, which is essential to constructing energy,” Fagan says. “A exercise that focuses on getting you as sweaty as potential or as fatigued as potential will not be equal to an efficient exercise.”