Fixing Up Your Lower Half

by Heather Long | More from this Blogger

12 Jun 2006 04:17 AM

Let's work on our lower body today. Two of the best exercises to build up strength, tone and looks in your lower half are squats and lunges. Squats and lunges are also great because you can do them with or without any tools. I know a lot of us like to have a good workout that we can do without spending a lot of money on equipment.

Squats

Squats improve muscles in your glute, around your hips and your abdomen as well as your legs. They offer a wide variety of results for a single exercise. So let's talk about squats and ladies, let's not worry about how you look when you are doing them - concentrate on how you will look AFTER you have been doing them.

There are no perfect ways to do exercises - you just concentrate on your form. You need to understand that your level of flexibility and your height will also play a key role in how you are able to perform your exercises. Don't worry about looking like anyone else - concentrate on how you look.

How to Do A Squat

• Stand straight with your feet a little wider than your shoulder width apart; point your toes slightly outwards
• Keep your back straight - stick out your and your butt
• Bend your hips and knees slowly, lean forward a bit, but as you descend lean back as though you were going to be sitting down in a chair
• You keep descending until your thighs are parallel on the floor; if you've never done the squats before you can use your Swiss ball between you and the wall for support and form
• As you rise, keep your torso at the same angle to the floor and don't let your knees come together as you push up
• Return to starting position
• Wash, Rinse, Repeat
• If you want to add resistance to your exercise, put a can of vegetables in each hand or a dumbbell in each hand

Lunges

Lunges sound like you are going to hurt yourself if you are not careful. When you perform the lunge, remember to concentrate on your form and not how you look while you are doing it. I will give you fair warning that lunges work on tightening up your thighs, your calves and your glutes. You will experience some soreness the next day - but it's a great feeling - your glutes always feel tighter after this routine.

How to Do a Lunge

• Stand with your back straight and your feet shoulder-width apart
• Take a long step forward, but keep your torso straight
• Your trailing foot remains at start and the leg that you took the step forward with begins to bend slowly and you can bend the rear leg slowly at the same time
• Now here's the tricky part, as you bend your leading leg, your knee will go forward but it should never go past your toes and your trailing leg will bend, but do not let it go all the way to ground
• Use the balls of your feet for balance and to hold your weight
• Hold the position for a moment and then rise slowly and step back in one fluid motion
• You can step back or bring the trailing leg forward, then stride forward - these are called walking lunges
• As with the squats earlier - you can add resistance to this by holding cans in each hand or dumbbells in each hand

When you are first getting started doing these - do a set of 10 repetitions of each. Build yourself up and be sure to always take a day off in between each resistance exercise. This is a great routine to add to any cardio and will help you build up lower body tone.

Learn more about Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago.

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