Lean Legs Circuit Workout

Want to slim down your lower body and sculpt strong, sexy curves? Then this thigh toning workout is for you!

It seems any time we poll our readers about which type of workout you all prefer, the answer is almost ALWAYS an overwhelming preference for LOWER BODY exercises! 

It’s a good thing we also love lower body workouts! Today we put together a lower body circuit for you that will have you huffing and puffing by the end, leaving your legs feeling like Jello and looking like a million bucks. 😉

Challenge a friend to try these moves with you, and see how many rounds you can do in 10 minutes!

Make sure to do a 3-5 minute warmup before you begin. In general, for your lower body workouts, you always want to keep your core engaged and make sure you’re using the glutes. 

How & Why to Engage the Glutes

Lots of people, women especially, forget to use their glutes while exercising. Either they haven’t built up the awareness of those muscles yet or they haven’t spent long enough reinforcing proper movement patterns to continually use the glutes in lower body movements.

It’s extremely important to use this large muscle group though, so don’t skimp on this point! If you’re having trouble feeling your glutes engage, simply focus your brain on that part of your body and continue to focus on what you think it WOULD feel like if you were to squeeze those muscles tightly. 

Over time you will develop what is known as proprioceptive awareness, or the mind-to-muscle connection, that is necessary in order to properly and fully “flex” a muscle. This process can take anywhere from 8-12 weeks, and sometimes longer.

Using your glutes during lower body exercises will vastly increase the safety of every movement. By putting the load into these large muscles designed to sustain heavy loads instead of falling back on smaller, less stable joints like the knees & ankles, you will avoid stressing the connective tissues like tendons and ligaments which are not designed to bear such loads.

By doing so, you will be more effective at protecting your body and preventing injury so you can keep on movin’ and groovin’ towards a leaner lower body.  

Important note: To better engage the glutes, keep your knees behind your toes and never let them cave inward. Create maximum torque on the lateral sides of your feet (the outer edges) without letting the feet themselves lift up. 

Modifications for Beginners

If you need to regress any of these moves, feel free to take out the jumping. It’s best to always use full range of motion, but you can also modify each exercise by shortening the range of motion as well if needed. 

If you’re looking to burn even more calories, we have TONS of workout ideas for you in the Bikini Bootcamp Programs! You can also subscribe to start your free challenge today and get a bunch of freebie workouts, tracking tools and more from us.

Just sign up below and tell us where to send the goods!

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If you want to see more workouts like this on the blog, make sure to share your requests in the comments below!

Happy exercising!! xo

Your trainers,
Liz & Sara