What is Lower Body Fitness
Every woman wants to be fit, But they focus mainly on the lower body. The lower body includes the area from the pelvis to the toe.
Achieving lower body fitness is quite hard. Because all the compound exercises target the big muscles. The muscles under the knee, such as calf muscles, needed some special exercise to tone.
Some women’s upper body is quite fit, but they hesitate to wear tight dresses and gowns because they have some extra fats in the thigh area. Today we’ll talk about the fitness of the lower body.
Body Fat Distribution
It’s mandatory to understand how body fat distribution works. Otherwise, you won’t be able to differentiate between what is normal and what is abnormal.
The fat distribution is different between men and women. Women have a naturally high volume of fat in some areas such as breast, buttock, thigh. There is biological logic behind it.
So, if you notice extra fat in those areas, there is no need to be worried. But you notice far more extra fat which is bothering you and your shape; then you should be worried.
Top 5 Exercise to Shape the Lower Body
There are some exercises, which target the full body. These are known as compound exercises. On the other hand, some exercises target specific muscles or areas. These are known as isolation.
To get a fit and toned lower body, you have to follow both compound and isolation exercises.
Squats
It’s known as a compound exercise. But it mainly targets the lower body. You can do this exercise without weight and also when you are comfortable about the weight you can do it with a barbell.
The Benefits of Squats
- Improves strength of your back muscles, gluteal muscles, quadriceps muscles.
- Helps to reduce hip dips. Dramatically improves the lower body flexibility
- Improves the strength of the bone and joints, especially knee joints.
How to do Squats
- Stand with feet wider than the hips and face your toe forward.
- Move your hips back by bending your knee and ankles. Slightly open your knees.
- Sit in a squat while your heels and toes still on the ground. Keep your head looking forward, back straight, chest up.
- Eventually, you’ll reach a parallel position where your knees are 90 degrees bent.
- Use your heels and press on the ground. Come back to the starting position.
Lunges
Lunges are a special form of resistance exercise. It’s one of the most healthier exercises for the lower body. It can be done in several ways, variations and degrees.
Benefits of the Lunges
- Improves the strength of hamstring muscles, glutes, calves, and quadriceps.
- Improves the flexibility of the pelvic joint.
- Helps to remove cankles.
- It helps to improve the post of the body
- Improve the tone of the lower body
How to do Lunges
- Stand straight
- Step your right leg 2 to 3 feet ahead of your left leg from a standing position, staggering your feet so they are not directly in front of one another.
- Engage your core muscle and tuck your hips so your low back does not arch and your pelvis is in line with your rib cage.
- Inhale deeply and bend both knees to 90 degrees until your right thigh is parallel to the ground. Both hands can rest on your hips to keep them straight and from tipping forward or back.
- Your right shin will almost be perpendicular to the floor at the bottom of your lunge, your right leg flat on the flat ground, and you must rest on your left toes (left heel elevated off the floor).
- Exhale as you push via both feet and squeeze your glutes to come back to your initial position.
Bridge
This is a powerful exercise. It is also known as glute bridges. You may already know this exercise from Instagram models.
Benefits of Bridge
- It’s an ideal exercise to remove extra fat from the gluteal area
- Helps to strengthen the glutes, hamstring, and calf muscles.
- Improves the flexibility and strength of your back muscles
- Helps to reduce fat in the waist area
- Tighten the skin and helps to make you look younger
How to do Bridge
- Lie on your back in a yoga mat with your hands by your sides, your knees bent, and your feet flat on the plain ground.
- Press your feet into the ground while tightening your buttocks and abs and by lifting your hips which will form a straight line from your knees joint to your shoulders.
- Try to hold the position for at least 20-30 seconds in good form (maintain proper tension in the core, try to pull your belly button back toward the spine).
- Lower yourself back to the ground.
- Repeat
Squat Jump
Squat jump is a challenging lower body exercise. If you are comfortable with squats, you should choose this exercise. This exercise focuses directly on calf muscles, hamstring, and gluteal muscles.
Benefits of Squat jump
- Improve the tone and tightens the lower body muscles, mainly calf muscles, hamstring, and gluteal muscles.
- Improves the stability and mobility of the body
- Helps to reduce extra fat of the ankle and calf area.
- Improves athletic movements.
How to do Squat Jumps
As it is a dynamic strength gaining exercise, warm up your body by cardio and simple running.
- Stand with your feet width equal to the shoulder width and your knees slightly bent.
- Bend both your knees and lower yourself into a full squat position.
- Engage the quads, glutes, and hamstrings to propel the body up and off the floor while extending the legs. The feet will be one or two inches (or more) off the floor when the legs are fully extended.
- Descend and control your landing by going through your foot (toes, ball, arches, heel) before returning to the squat for another explosive jump.
- Immediately after landing, repeat the previous jump.
High Knee Toe Taps
This exercise is quite an advanced exercise for calf muscles. If you have extra fat in the calf and ankle area, this exercise is ideal for you. This exercise needs a slightly high bench. A staircase can be the solution for you if you can’t manage the bench.
The benefits of the High Knee Toe Taps
- Strengthens the muscles of the lower legs
- Improves the flexibility of the body
- Improves the shape of the lower legs
- Tightens the skin of the lower legs
How to do High Knee Toe Taps
- Place yourself in front of a 10 to 12-inch tall step, box, platform, or BOSU ball. Keep your arms at your sides.
- Raise your right foot and place the tip of your feet on it.
- Your foot may be angled rather than flat, depending on the type of equipment you use. Your left foot, on the other hand, will remain flat on the ground. This is where you’ll begin.
- Lift your left leg off the platform and switch legs mid-air, with your left leg now touching the ground and your right leg on the ground.
- Arms can be kept at your sides or alternated with your legs as if you were running.
- Slowly repeat interchanging toe taps until you are comfortable with the range of movement and your technique is correct.
- Accelerate your pace and alternate between your left and right feet, tapping the platform’s edge for some amount of seconds, typically 30 to 60 seconds.
Takeaway
Lower body fitness can not be achieved only by following those exercises. You’ve to maintain a proper diet and a healthy lifestyle to achieve that.
Author
Sourav Das
Final year MBBS student
