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FACT CHECKEDThe largest muscles in the body are found below the waist so you might be thinking that you will need heavy weights to train them properly. The good news is that you can get a killer leg workout in with just your body weight. You can tweak the volume, angles and muscles targeted to get the most out of a no equipment at home leg workout.
We will be providing 5 of the best at home leg workouts that you can do with only your own body weight. All you need is a get up and go attitude, water and maybe a towel to wipe off all that sweat.
Table of Contents:
To properly train your legs at home you should first understand what the muscles are and their function in your lower body so you can form a solid body-mind connection before jumping into a leg workout.
We’re actually going to include hips and glutes here as they are important in lower body exercises. So, we will briefly touch on the anatomy and function of the hips, glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings and calves.
Let's start at the hips and work our way down to the calves.
One of the most flexible joints in the body, the hip is comprised of multiple muscles that are grouped together by their location and function. There are a total of four groups of muscles in the hip including abductor group, adductor group, posterior group and anterior group. The muscles in the hip provide strength, stability and mobility to the hip joint and thigh bones. We won’t go into depth about all the muscles found in the hip but below is a general functioning of each group of muscles.
Made of three muscles the gluteus minimus, gluteus medius and gluteus maximus. These muscles help to keep our core and spine stable throughout various movements. You've probably noticed that the gluteal muscles have been in the spotlight in recent years especially with the rise of social media.
This strong and lean four headed muscle is located at the front of your upper legs. Working in unison, these muscles help with standing, walking, and running while also keeping the kneecap stable. The quad muscle aids in the extension of the lower leg from the knee. The four heads of the quadriceps are as follows:
Comprised of three muscles on the back of the thigh, the hamstring muscles help with knee and hip movements in squatting, walking, bending knees and tilting the pelvis. These muscles contract to bring your leg behind your body by bending the knees. Tendons connect the hamstring muscles to the bones of pelvis and knee. The three muscles of the hamstring are:
Comprised of two muscles, the soleus and the gastrocnemius, the calf muscles are on the back of the lower leg. Both muscles join and merge at the base of the calf muscle then connect to the Achilles heel via strong connective tissue. These muscles are important for walking, running and jumping by lifting the heel, propelling us forward. This means it's important to not neglect them in your workout. Do your calves exercises!
Getting to the good stuff now, we put together 5 brutal bodyweight leg workouts that can be done in the comfort of your own home. These at home leg day workouts range in difficulty, so choose the workouts that are appropriate for your fitness level or adjust the sets or reps as needed.
After we run through the workouts, we will go over each exercise (20 in total) involved so you know how to do them, what muscles they target, and the difficulty level.
These no equipment home leg workouts are spread amongst multiple training protocols, which are as follows:
Note: You won’t need any actual equipment but some exercises will require a bench or chair that you can jump up on to so make sure it is sturdy and that you don’t mind getting it dirty. You will need enough space where you can take one large step forward and backward as well as to the sides.
As we always recommend; before beginning any workout you should include a 5–10 minute dynamic warmup and upon completion of the workout you should complete a 5-10 minute cool down or stretch.
In this at home leg workout we structured it like a gym routine where you should complete 5 sets for 10 reps for each exercise listed. This home leg workout will target all major muscles of the lower body including the hips and glutes. Keep rest time minimal between sets (around 30 seconds).
In this leg AMRAP at home workout you will be doing 9 different leg exercises for 45 seconds each where you will do as many reps as possible then rest for 15 seconds before completing the next exercise. You will be doing two rounds of all 9 exercises with a brief rest of 1 minute between the three rounds. Try to improve your number of reps each round if possible.
Note: If possible try to track how many of each exercise was completed to see you progression over time.
Squats are one of the best leg exercises you can do at home. Bodyweight squats are great for burning calories while targeting all the muscles in the lower body, particularly the quads. In fact, squats are an essential move for a quad workout at home. In this squat circuit, you will perform 6 squat variations.
Complete this bodyweight squat circuit by doing 20 squats of each exercise before moving on to the next with no breaks until you finish the 6th exercise. Rest up to 2 mins then continue until you’ve done 5 full circuits or a total of 600 squats.
Note: Do 10 each side for split squats. Increase difficultly of this circuit by finishing the circuit in the fastest amount of time.
This lunge leg workout isn’t for the faint of heart. You will complete ascending and descending ladders of four lunge variations. An ascending ladder is where you add one rep at a time (1-2-3...10) and a descending ladder you reduce one rep at a time(10-9-8...1).
In total you will be doing 400 lunges split into two sessions. Each session is made of two different lunges. Lunges are unilateral exercises where you will exercise one leg at a time. Therefore, you should focus on one leg from reps 1-10 then switch legs for reps 10-1.
1. Front Lunge x Curtsy Lunge:
Rest up to 3 mins
2. Reverse Lunge x Lateral Lunge:
Although the following exercises aren’t all technically all plyometrics, they are all about explosiveness and power. Each bodyweight leg exercise in this workout will involve jumping. That said, you should give it your all with each jump trying to get as much air as possible or as far as possible (lateral jumps). Each exercise will have four sets but varying number of reps in each set.
Rest up to 2 mins in between rounds
Note: Make sure you are aware of your energy levels especially when doing one leg box jumps and box jumps. if you are extremely winded take a short breather until you can safely perform the jumps.
As promised, here are all the bodyweight leg exercises that were included in the 5 home leg workouts. Each exercise has a step by step how to, difficulty level and muscles worked.
Good for: Beginners to Advanced
Primary muscles worked: Quads, Glutes
Secondary muscles worked: Hamstrings, Hip Adductors, Calves, and Core
Good for: Beginners to Advanced
Primary muscles worked: Glutes, Hamstrings, Quads
Secondary muscles worked: Hip Adductors, Calves
Good for: Beginners to Advanced
Primary muscles worked: Inner Thigh (Quads & Hamstrings), Glutes
Secondary muscles worked: Hip Flexors, Calves, and Core
Good for: Beginners to Advanced
Primary muscles worked: Glutes, Quads, Calves
Secondary muscles worked: Hamstrings, Hip Flexors
Good for: Intermediate to Advanced
Primary muscles worked: Quads, Glutes
Secondary muscles worked: Hamstrings, Hip Adductors, Calves
Good for: Beginner to Advanced
Primary muscles worked: Quads, Glutes, Hamstrings, Calves
Secondary muscles worked: Hips, Low back, Core
Good for: Beginner to Advanced
Primary muscles worked: Quads, Hamstrings, Glutes, Calves, Hip Abductors
Good for: Beginners to Advanced
Primary muscles worked: Quads, Glutes
Secondary muscles worked: Hamstrings, Calves, Core
Good for: Beginners to Advanced
Primary muscles worked: Quads, Glutes, Calves
Secondary muscles worked: Hamstrings, Hips, Core
Good for: Beginners to Advanced
Primary muscles worked: Hamstrings, Glutes
Secondary muscles worked: Quads, Calves, Core
Good for: Intermediate to Advanced
Primary muscles worked: Quadriceps, Hip Adductors, Glutes
Secondary muscles worked: Hamstrings, Hip Abductors
Good for: Intermediate to Advanced
Primary muscles worked: Glutes, Hamstrings, Hip Flexors
Secondary muscles worked: Calves, Quads, and Low Back to a lesser degree
Good for: Beginner to Advanced
Primary muscles worked: Glutes, Hamstrings
Secondary muscles worked: Core, Hips
Good for: Beginner to Advanced
Primary muscles worked: Calves
Secondary muscles worked: Glutes, Inner Thigh (isometric)
Good for: Beginner to Advanced
Primary muscles worked: Calves
Good for: Advanced
Primary muscles worked: Quads, Glutes, Hamstrings, Calves
Secondary muscles worked: Hips, Core
Good for: Intermediate to Advanced
Primary muscles worked: Quads, Glutes
Secondary muscles worked: Hamstrings, Calves, Hips, Core
Good for: Intermediate to Advanced
Primary muscles worked: Quads, Glutes, Hamstrings, Calves, Hip Flexors
Secondary muscles worked: Hips, Core
Good for: Intermediate to Advanced
Primary muscles worked: Quads, Glutes, Hamstrings, Calves
Secondary muscles worked: Hips, Core
Good for: Beginner to Advanced
Primary muscles worked: Calves
To end this, let's go over some frequently asked questions regarding leg day workouts at home.
Yes, it is possible to build leg muscle with bodyweight leg exercises. To build muscle without weights you must make your workouts progressively more intense. You can do this through a number of methods including increasing volume, shortening rest time, hitting different angles of various exercises and using other training methods such as AMRAP and supersets. Progressive overload principles also apply to bodyweight exercises.
Beginners to exercise can definitely pack on some lean leg muscle from leg exercises without weights. However, it will be a little more difficult for regular weightlifters to put on muscle by performing bodyweight exercises. To make bodyweight leg workouts more difficult and effective, try adding in some unilateral and plyometric exercises. Also, check out this calisthenics legs workout for some even more challenging lower body routines.
The best leg exercise you can do with no equipment is the modest squat. While it might not seem like an Earth-shattering answer, squats are one of the best bodyweight leg exercises you can do. Squats work all the major muscles of the lower body including glutes, quads, hamstrings and calves. Doing air squats can actually build lean muscle if following progressive overload methods, plus squats can help to improve balance as you can engage your core during the movement to keep the form and technique up to par. Lastly, squats help to burn tons of calories if done at a high pace.
A big yes! Leg training with or without equipment will help you burn an immense number of calories. The largest muscles in your body are found in your lower body so when you work them out your body requires more energy to fuel them. The heart has to work harder to pump blood to these large muscle groups therefore turning you into a fat burning furnace.
Many people ask how they can reduce fat in their thighs, but the unfortunate answer to this question is that spot targeting bodyparts for fat loss is a myth. The best way to reduce leg fat is to burn more calories, eat healthier and gain lean muscle. With that being said we find the best leg exercises to burn fat and add muscle are squats, lunges and plyometrics. The good thing is that there are numerous variations of these exercises so you should never get bored while also hitting different muscles within the major muscle groups of the legs.
Related: How Many Calories do Squats Burn?
The best exercises to strengthen legs are usually considered the squat and deadlift. Both of these leg exercises require major muscles to work together as one. So, as these large muscles are recruited to work in unison, they produce more force. There’s a reason why powerlifters consider both squats and deadlifts two of the quintessential lifts to display strength and power. Considering this article is about no weight at home leg exercises, we would have to give the competitive edge to squats for strengthening legs.
CONCLUSION:
Look down at your legs, do you think they deserve a little more attention? Your legs are your mobility so you should train them as such. We take for granted the amazing gift of being bipedal and all too often we don’t use our legs as much as we should. It’s no excuse to skip leg day just because you might be stuck at home with no weights.
At home leg workouts can seriously kick your butt into shape. We often get asked, “how to workout legs at home without any weights?” The answer: do enough bodyweight leg exercises to make you regret asking that question in the first place.
Have dumbbells at home? Leg workouts at home with dumbbells will take your gains to the next level. Check out our favorite dumbbell glute, quad, hamstring and calf exercises. Incorporate them into your at-home lower body workouts!
P.S. Don't forget about your upper body: The Ultimate Upper Body Bodyweight Workout
Related: Box Jumps: Correct Form, Benefits, & Variations
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