Tag Archives: lower body

Jump Lunge Hold

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Hello everyone!  It’s time again for the Home Exercise of the Week.  I have a killer thigh burning and sweat inducing exercise for you today!  It’s called the Jump Lunge Hold and if the jumping part doesn’t cause you to shout profanities then the hold will. 😉

The Jump Lunge Hold is going to strengthen and build your quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, and calves.  The hold is going to build muscular endurance and the jumping adds a plyometric aspect to the exercise increasing your explosive power and heart rate.  So overall this is a great leg exercise to add in to your routine and can be done anywhere with or without weights.

How to do this leg burner effectively:

  • keep your body upright with your chest out and back straight throughout
  • lunge down until both legs are at 90 degree angles
  • jump up pushing through the heel of your front foot
  • switch legs in the air and try to land softly keeping your weight distributed between your front foot and back toes
  • hold the lunge position for 3 to 5 seconds before switching legs

So that’s it for the Jump Lunge Hold.  Give it a try and I guarantee that it will strengthen and burn your thighs and butt!  If you are in one of my boot camps or a one on one client then you have this exercise to look forward to in your next session!  Happy lunge jumping. 🙂

 

5 Squat Hold

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This weeks Home Exercise of the Week is a variation of the regular body weight squat.  The 5 Squat Hold is an exercise that I like to add in to my training sessions and boot camps from time to time so people have another reason to curse and swear at me!  I can just picture it now…sweaty people groaning, complaining, and wondering why they ever decided to do this. 😉

All kidding aside, the 5 Squat Hold is effective.  You will be sculpting and strengthening your quads, hamstrings, and glutes.  On top of all that, the hold part of the exercise will increase your muscular endurance.  The benefits far outweigh the temporary pain and discomfort.

With any exercise, strict form is top priority.  Some key points to remember when doing the 5 Squat Hold:

  • Have your feet shoulder width apart with your toes pointed out slightly
  • Squat down like you’re going to sit in a chair keeping your knees in line or behind your toes
  • Stay as upright as possible.  There is a tendency when squatting to lean over too much.  Try to avoid this as doing so can hurt your lower back.  To stay upright, stick your chest out, keep your head looking forward, and arch your back up slightly.
  • Come down until your thighs are parallel to the floor.  If you can’t go down that far at first just do what you can and over time you will be able to go lower
  • As you are coming up out of the squat make sure that you are pushing up through your heels.  If you push up through your toes, a lot of stress will be placed on your knees.  We don’t want that!  Pushing through the heel will put more of the strain on the working muscles

In the video, I said to hold for 5 seconds.  That is a good time to start off with but if you want more of a challenge take each hold to 10 seconds.  1 set of this exercise would be 5 squats with a 5 – 10 second hold for 3 – 4 times through giving you 15 to 20 repetitions of squats total.  To get a shoulder workout at the same time, hold your arms in front of you at shoulder height throughout the exercise and they will be burning too!

So there you have the 5 Squat Hold.  Fire up your legs and let me know how you do!

Wall Sit Shoulder Press

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It’s time for another Home Exercise of the Week!  Get your legs and shoulders fired up with the Wall Sit Shoulder Press.

From the video, it may look simple enough but don’t let that fool you…this will burn!  Grown men have almost cried because of the wall sit, curses have been vocalized through clenched teeth, and sweat has poured down grimaced faces.  I know it sounds horrible and you might be thinking “Craig, why would I ever want to put myself through that?”.

Well the answer to your question is you will gain more strength and endurance in your legs, you will increase strength and mobility in your shoulders, and you will strengthen the deep core muscles of your trunk and your spinal muscles.  All that plus if you’re weird like me, you might even think it’s fun! (Ok I’ll be honest…it’s more fun making people do it than actually doing it!)

The wall sit portion of this exercise is isometric which means you are working your muscles without any movement at the joint.  This is great for building strength and endurance.

Some key points to remember when doing the Wall Sit Shoulder Press:

  • make sure your knees are directly over your ankles
  • slide down the wall until your thighs are parallel to the floor
  • keep your back pressed firmly against the wall
  • press your arms back against the wall as much as you can throughout the movement (you may not be able to maintain contact with the wall throughout the exercise at first but over time your mobility will increase)
  • exhale as your press up and inhale as you lower your arms

So there you have the Wall Sit Shoulder Press.  Start with a couple sets of 12 repetitions or a couple of timed sets of 30 seconds at the end your leg or shoulder workout and feel the burn!

Burpee

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This weeks exercise is a Burpee!  It is a very popular exercise used in group fitness classes and boot camps but I would say it’s not a very popular exercise for the people doing it!  The reason being is it is a challenging exercise that will test your strength and cardiovascular endurance.  Any full body movement that involves jumping gets the heart rate up high because all those working muscles are trying to get oxygen and your blood brings that oxygen to them.  More muscles used = increased cardiac output and increased oxygen uptake.

The Burpee shown in this video is a modified basic version and the burpee at the end is a regular basic version.  As I mentioned before, it is a full body movement working the muscles in your upper and lower body as well as strengthening your core, improving coordination and building cardiovascular endurance.  There are many variations to this exercise and I will be showing more versions in the future because I know how everyone just loves Burpees! 🙂

One Leg Squat

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The One Leg Squat is a challenging lower body exercise that works your quads, hamstrings, glutes, balance, and all the little stabilizer muscles of the ankle.  Start off squatting down slowly to keep from toppling over or you can put your hand against the wall or on a chair to steady yourself.  Always remember to keep your back straight and keep your knee from shooting out past your toes.