The jump lunge is an advanced variation of a basic walking lunge exercise, bumping up the intensity by adding a jump. Not only is this an excellent cardiovascular exercise, but it also helps develop and improve lower body strength and power, as well as challenge dynamic stability and coordination.
This is a great exercise to develop power through the legs and shoulders especially for sports that require extension through multiple joints.
An advanced version of a standard lunge, this should only be attempted after a proper warm up and by those that can comfortably perform a kettlebell clean and press. By incorporating the overhead element, this exercise also targets the shoulders, triceps and lower back.
The Sumo Squat is a fresh take on the traditional squat. The Sumo tweaks the form slightly to engage and target the glutes and adductors (Inner Thighs) more specifically.
This is a cool way to get activation and pump through the quads. It is a standard squat but at the top of the movement, we do not activate our glutes and squeeze our glutes, we have a tilt forward in order to keep the quads tight and clenchable!
Do you want to feel your glutes? Good news! This exercise will do the trick! This an effective glute and leg strengthening exercise with a wee bit of balance thrown in for good measure. You’re about to see if you have one good side and one gumby side!
At first you will almost plonk down. The aim is to get better so that you can sit down in a controlled manner. As my mum says “Plonk is your for grandmother” hehe
This exercise is given it’s name as it’s like dragging another person to where they need to go.. odd that it’s a shallow grave.. but hey.. given the resistance and how potentially angry you might be in how much resistance they give you? The name stuck!
The good old wall sit. What a hate crime. I mean.. what a great exercise! Definitely an exercise to show your stamina for quads an glutes. This exercise can also be a great way to finish off those muscles in a superset.. as I said – a hate crime.
A front squat is a great way to get those quads firing!
A variation on your standard squat the bench squat is useful in determining the depth required for a full squat or for enhancing glute activation by ensuring users are squatting backwards in the movement.
Sissy Squats are an excellent exercise to help develop the quadricep muscles of your legs. The sissy squat equipment allows you to get into a position that your centre of balance and gravity would not normally allow.
To up the ante and intensity of the leg press – evolving to the single leg press makes for a great and challenging variation. You will lift drastically less weight due to halving the amount of muscles doing the exercise but it will feel like your single leg is doing twice as much! This exercise can be evolved further by the positioning of the foot on the plate. Lower will have more quad engagement and higher will be more glute and hamstring.
Walking Bar Bell lunges are a fantastic exercise for developing your legs and also working on your ability to stabilise your movement. There are two minor variations for this exercise – continuous and pausing. If you are doing continuous, as your step up and out of the lunge, your previously rear leg does not touch the ground until it has stepped out in front to be the forward leg. In a pausing variation, the lunger will step up and out of the lunge with the previously rear foot being brought alongside the other foot grounded where a pause will take place and then the lunge forward will take place. This pause allows for a reset or refocus for the next movement. If you get tired or feel unstable doing continuous walking lunges – you should default back to pausing after each lunge/rep.
The Bulgarian split squat is a version of a single-leg squat where the back leg is elevated on a bench or a sturdy chair. As a single-leg, unilateral squat, the exercise places a greater focus on the quadriceps than other, similar lower-body compound movements.
As stability and strength improves add a DB to one hand.
This is an often underused exercise often because people don’t do them properly. There is some great benefit in leg extensions provided that you lose your ego and recognise that heavier is most likely to be counter productive to your goals.
This exercise is regarding full leg extensions.
This exercise isolates your quadriceps. This is also an exercise where you need to keep your ego in check as you don’t need to kick out a lot of reps with ALL THE WEIGHTS. A lighter weight with controlled movements should do the trick nicely.
Dead lifts are considered to be one of – if not THE BEST exercises. The basic premise is that you are lifting a dead weight from the floor. It has many variations and can be mixed up to co-inside with your workout requirements. Using a kettle bell allows to mix up the positioning of the weight to be more central to your mass.