Understanding Squat

In addition to strengthening your butt muscles, the squat also does a good job of working your quadriceps and hamstrings. If you have hip, knee, or lower back problems, you may want to try the modified version.

Getting set
Hold a dumbbell in each hand or place your hands on your hips or on the tops of your thighs, or allow them to hang comfortably down at your sides. Stand with your feet as wide as your hips and with your weight slightly back on your heels. Pull your abdominals in and stand up tall with square shoulders.
See photo A

The exercise
Sit back and down, as if you’re sitting into a chair. Lower as far as you can without leaning your upper body more than a few inches forward. Don’t lower any farther than the point at which your thighs are parallel to the floor, and don’t allow your knees to shoot out in front of your toes. When you feel your upper body fold forward over your thighs, straighten your legs and stand back up. Take care not to lock your knees at the top of the movement. See photo B.

Do’s and don’ts

• DON’T allow your knees to travel beyond your toes. We know we said this before, but it bears repeating.
• DON’T look down. Your body tends to follow your eyes. So if you’re staring at the ground, you’re more likely to fall forward. Instead, keep your head up and your eyes focused on an object directly in front of you.
• DON’T shift your body weight forward so your heels lift up off the floor. When you push back up to the standing position, concentrate on pushing through your heels.
• DON’T arch your back as you stand back up.

Other options

Weightless squat (easier): If you have trouble balancing or completing at least eight repetitions of the squat with good form, skip the weights. Instead place your hands on your hips or the tops of your thighs as you do the exercise.

Bench squat (easier): Place the end of a bench behind you and allow your buttocks to lightly touch the top of it as you sit downward. This placement helps you guide your movement and perfect your form.

Plié squat: To add emphasis to the inner and outer thighs, place your feet out a little wider apart and angle your toes outward. Most people lower farther in this position because they feel more stable. Still, don’t travel any lower than the point at which your thighs are parallel to the floor, and don’t let your knees shoot out past your toes.

Barbell squat (harder): When you’ve mastered the squat, progress to the barbell squat for even greater challenges. Place a weighted bar in a power cage so when you stand underneath it, the bar rests gently across the top of your shoulders. Stand with your feet as wide as your hips, weight shifted slightly back on your heels, and hold on to either side of the bar with your hands wider than shoulder-width apart. Pull your abdominals in and stand up tall with square shoulders.

Sit back and down, as if you’re sitting into a chair. Lower as far as you can without leaning your upper body more than a few inches forward. Don’t lower any farther than the point at which your thighs are parallel to the floor, and don’t allow your knees to shoot out in front of your toes. When you feel your upper body fold forward over your thighs, straighten your legs and stand back up.

Avoiding Mistakes When Working Your Lower Body

Here are the most common pitfalls to watch out for when training your butt and legs:

• Don’t play favorites. In other words, don’t work your butt muscles and neglect your thighs just because you want to fill out the back of your jeans. Strive for balance. If one lower body muscle group is monstrously strong compared to the others, it pulls your posture out of alignment and you may end up with an injury.
• Don’t put your knees in jeopardy. Avoid locking your knees when you’re lifting a weight, and don’t allow your knees to shoot out past your toes in the squat, lunge, or leg press. If you feel knee pain during an exercise, stop immediately. Try another exercise and return to the one that gave you trouble after you’ve been training for a few weeks. Or perform a simpler version of the exercise, restricting the distance you move the weight.
• Don’t perform more than 15 repetitions for any leg exercise for strength training. Some people, afraid of developing bulky legs, use extremely light weights and perform 40 repetitions. You’re not going to build much strength this way, and you’ll probably fall asleep in the middle of a set. You also increase your chance of injury from placing too much repetitive stress on your joints.

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.

Getting a Great Lower Body Workout

In general, work your large muscles before moving on to your small ones. So perform your lower body workouts in the following order:
1. Glutes
2. Quads
3. Hamstrings
4. Inner and outer thighs
5. Calves
6. Shins

The only exception to this rule is if you specifically want to target a smaller muscle that’s lagging far behind in its strength and is creating a too noticeable weak link. If that’s the case, it’s a good idea to switch your exercise order around so you target the weakest muscle when it’s fresh. Do at least four or five lower body exercises on a regular basis for balanced muscle development and visible training results. Your workouts need to include two types of exercises:

• Compound exercises, which involve several muscle groups at once
• Isolation exercises, which hone in on a single muscle group

If you’re starting out with bad knees or hips, you may want to take a few weeks to simply focus on the muscles surrounding those joints. If your knees are the problem, for example, start with exercises that isolate your quads (the thigh squeeze and the leg extension machine) and your hams (the leg curl machine) and wait a few weeks before graduating to compound exercises (the squat and the lunge).

Getting a leg up on the competition

If you’re on an aerobic mission like training for a 10K or a bike-a-thon, strong legs are even more essential. Many runners and cyclists are afraid to lift weights, figuring that they’ll develop bulky legs that’ll slow them down. But the reality, according to mounds of research, is that leg and butt exercises help you go farther and faster. The key is in maintaining a good balance between strength and endurance training. One guy we know couldn’t break the four-hour barrier in the marathon until he started doing lower body weight training exercises. His hips used to tire out at around mile 16, so he wasn’t able to stretch his legs out to their full stride, and he’d shuffle through the last 10 miles. At age 49, thanks to a regular leg routine, he was finally able to cruise through the finish line in 3 hours and 50 minutes. Even if your athletic goals aren’t as ambitious as running 26.2 miles, leg workouts are important. Say you simply want to ride your stationary bike for 30 minutes three times a week. Stronger legs help you pedal faster and harder so that you can burn more calories during that half hour.

Enjoying a Strong Lower Body

According to research, the key predictor of whether you’ll need to live in an assisted living facility when you’re elderly is your leg strength. Here’s why you need to work on those glutes, quads, hams, and calves:

• Real-life benefits: When you take the time to strengthen your legs, you have more stamina for waiting in line at the post office, racing through the grocery store to catch a small child, climbing office stairs when the elevator is broken, and standing on tiptoe to paint the corner of your ceiling.
• Injury prevention: Strengthening your lower body muscles is a good way to preserve your hip, knee, and ankle joints — three joints that put in a lot of overtime and are particularly susceptible to injury. It’s true that many joint injuries result from torn ligaments or tendons (the connective tissue that holds your bones in place), but many of these injuries won’t occur in the first place if you have a strong army of muscles surrounding and protecting your joints. Often, lower body injuries result from a lifetime of repetitive motions such as walking up and down stairs. Weak muscles allow the bones to grind down the protective cartilage more rapidly and can’t support the proper alignment that is necessary for healthy joint function. By strengthening the muscles that surround the joints, you give them the support they need to do their job day after day. With strong lower body muscles you’re less likely to sprain your ankle by stepping off a curb because your joints have the strength to hold up even when they’re wrenched into positions they’d prefer to avoid. If you’re already at the point where you have bad knees or a “trick ankle,” it’s not too late to pump some iron with your lower body muscles.
• The “Feel Good” factor: When your lower body is strong, you feel confident because you know that you can lift that heavy item, you can walk up those stairs, and you can take care of yourself. Leg strength is the leading indicator of who will end up living in nursing homes. Be strong and feel good about you.

Understanding Butt and Leg Muscle Basics

You have several muscles that make up the lower portion of your body. Each muscle serves a purpose and works with the other muscles in your lower body to help you move around. Take a look at the breakdown of the muscles below your waist:

• Gluteus maximus (glutes): The glutes is the granddaddy of all muscles in your body and covers your entire butt — both cheeks. The gluteus maximus straightens your legs from your hips when you stand up and propels you forward when you walk or run.
• Hip flexors: The muscles opposite your gluteus maximus, located at the front of your hips. Your hip flexor muscles help you lift your leg up high so you can march in a parade or step up onto a ladder. You don’t need to spend much time working your hip flexors; they tend to be relatively stronger than the glutes in most people. When the hip flexors become disproportionately strong and tight compared to other muscles, they pull your pelvis forward and throw your hip and lower spine into an excessively arched position. This strength imbalance may contribute to poor posture and lower back pain. Keep in mind that balanced muscle development is as important as strong muscles.
• Abductors: The sides, or meat, of your hips: your outer thighs. Your outer hips move your leg away from your body, like when you push off while ice-skating. The main outer hip muscle is called the gluteus medius.Adductors: The muscles that span the inside of your upper leg or inner thighs. They pull your leg in toward the center of your body or, when they’re feeling ambitious, they sweep one leg in front of and past the other, like when you kick a soccer ball off to the side.
• Quadriceps (quads): The quads are located at the front of your thighs. Together these four muscles have one purpose: to straighten your leg from the knee.
• Hamstrings (hams): These muscles reside directly behind your thighbone. They bend your knee, bringing your heel toward your buttocks, and help the glutes do their thing.
• Gastrocnemius (gastroc): The gastroc is shaped like a diamond. The gastroc allows you to rise up on your tiptoes to see over your neighbor’s fence. Check out the calves of any competitive bicyclist, and you’ll see precisely what this muscle looks like.
• Soleus: Your soleus lies directly underneath the gastroc and helps out the gastroc when your knee is bent and you need to raise your heels up, like when you’re sitting at the movies and you realize that you just stepped in gum.
• Tibialis anterior: The partner to your calf muscles is your shin muscle, covering the front of your lower leg. Whenever you’re listening to music that makes you feel like tapping your toes, you can thank this muscle for allowing you to literally make this movement happen.