Work Out with Lower Body Muscles

Here are some tips for working specific lower body muscle groups:

• Glutes: It’s tough to isolate your butt muscles because nearly every butt exercise also involves the front and/or rear thigh muscles. However, you can maximize the emphasis on your maximus with a few simple technique tricks. For instance, when you’re doing the leg press or the squat, keep your toes pointed straight ahead as much as possible and your weight shifted slightly back onto your heels, especially as you press back up into the straight-leg position. The more weight you shift onto your toes, the more your quadriceps become involved. Also, when you stand up, squeeze your cheeks to make sure your glutes are really working and aren’t just going along for the ride.
• Quadriceps: The leg extension — an exercise in which you straighten your legs from a bent position — may give you a twinge of pain in your kneecap as you near the fully extended position. In this case, stop just before your legs are straight. Many leg extension machines have a device that stops the lever of the machine from going past the point you set. The machine may also let you start from a higher position than normal if you feel pain when you’re initiating the movement.
• Hamstrings: The most popular way to work the hamstrings is with a leg curl machine; you start with your legs straight and curl your heels toward your butt. You typically find this machine in three varieties: lying, seated, and standing. In this chapter we show you how to use the lying leg curl because it’s the one you see most often and the one we generally like best (although our opinions vary from brand to brand). With some leg curl machines, you lie flat on your stomach; others have a severe bend in the support pad. Our favorite variety has you lying at an angle with your hips above your head. Try all the hamstring machines available to you, and use any of the machines that feel comfortable.
• Calves: When you perform the standing calf raise, experiment with the angle of your toes to find the position that’s most comfortable. But don’t angle your toes too much outward or inward or you’ll place too much stress on your knees and ankles. And perform calf exercises slowly. Bouncing your heels up and down causes your calf muscles to tighten and uses momentum to power the movement instead of maximally challenging your muscles.

Expect to feel sore and walk a little stiffly for a day or two after your first few lower body workouts. Of course, any muscle that’s new to weight training is likely to be sore after the first few sessions, but leg muscles seem particularly prone to this phenomenon. Start out with just your own body weight or light weights; otherwise, you may find yourself walking like Herman Munster or wincing in agony when you get up from the breakfast table.