For many people, leg day traditionally means lifting weights. The largest muscle groups in the body are found in the legs and glutes, and to strengthen these muscles, people often turn to compound movements like squats and deadlifts performed with heavy weights.
However, you can do effective leg exercises at home without any weights, using creative methods to engage your lower body muscles. This leg exercise from YouTube fitness coach Caroline Girvan can be done without any equipment, except for a yoga mat and a chair or bench to rest your foot on when doing Bulgarian split squats.
This is a 40-minute workout and Girvan uses tri-sets, a type of workout where you perform three exercises in a row without rest to increase the time the targeted muscles are under tension. It’s these tri-sets that make this a challenging and effective leg workout that you can do without any weights.
Watch Caroline Girvan's Leg Workout
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The workout consists of seven tri-sets, during which you perform each move in the series for 45 seconds without taking a break. After completing the tri-set, you take a 30-second break. You perform each tri-set twice before moving on to the next one.
Most tri-sets involve holding a position for one of 45-second sets, with these isometric exercises providing a mental challenge in addition to the physical one. Your muscles will be on fire by the end of the hold periods to the point where you'll be relieved to get moving again and start going through the full range of motion with the exercise.
The workout focuses on classic leg exercises like squats, deadlifts, and lunges, with variations on the movements to slightly change the targeted muscles. All the major muscles of the lower body are targeted, as well as the smaller stabilizing muscles that you'll use in the exercises performed on a specific leg.
Since you don't need any equipment for the workout, it's a great workout to do while traveling, as well as at home. If you have weights on hand and want to increase the intensity even further or progress the workout once you've done it a few times, you can hold dumbbells or kettlebells during most of the exercises.
What are the benefits of this training?
Leg exercises are obviously great for strengthening your lower body, but they are also effective for boosting your metabolism and increasing your heart rate because you are using the largest muscles in your body. Working out for 40 minutes with this session will definitely improve your fitness as well as your strength.
A workout like this is also good for your core strength and stability. Make sure to move with control throughout the exercise to engage your body's stabilizing muscles and perform each exercise with proper form.
If you'd rather do a shorter session first and have weights available, you can try this five-move dumbbell workout, or if you prefer to work out without weights, this five-move bodyweight workout targets muscles throughout your entire body.