Never Skip Leg Day With These 15 Lower-Body Exercises

While not quite as glamorous or immediately noticeable as working your arms or abs, strengthening your lower body pays big-time dividends for the look and shape of your body and your overall health. Here’s why you should never skip lower-body workouts, plus 15 of the most easy and effective lower-body exercises to incorporate into your fitness routine.

Let’s get started!

The benefits of doing lower-body exercises

Regularly incorporating lower-body exercises into your workouts offer many benefits. They include:

• Higher metabolism and calorie burn

• Working multiple muscles at once

• Better mobility, balance and stability

• Stronger bones

Higher metabolism and calorie burn

The muscles of your lower half are the largest muscles in your body. That means that exercising them is going to burn many more calories than, say, working your biceps. Likewise, working these large muscles is going to lead to the development of more lean muscle mass, which is directly related to a higher metabolism.

Working multiple muscles at once

Speaking of those large muscles, every lower-body exercise on our list is going to work more than one of them at the same time. What are these big lower-body muscles? They include your glutes (aka gluteus maximus, medius, and minimus), your hamstrings, your quadriceps, your calves, and the smaller muscles that run along the inner and outer thighs.

Better mobility, balance and stability

Strong lower-body muscles are directly responsible for keeping you agile and mobile and helping you avoid falls and injuries, especially as you get older.

Stronger bones

All the lower-body exercises below are weight bearing, which means they will all help increase the bone density of the large bones responsible for holding you up and keeping you healthy and moving.

15 lower-body workouts to incorporate into your fitness routine

Ready to get started? Try these 15 lower-body exercises, all of which can be done with just your bodyweight or while holding one or two dumbbells.

• Regular squats

• Sumo squats

• Forward lunges

• Reverse lunges

• Lateral lunges

• Romanian deadlifts

• Curtsy squats

• Hip bridges

• Single-leg bridges

• Side-lying leg lifts

• Squat jumps

• Single-leg squats

• Single-leg deadlifts

• Jumping lunges

• Pulses

1. Regular squats

What it works: Glutes, hamstrings, and quads.

How to do it: 

• Start with your feet shoulder-width apart, toes turned slightly out. 

• Keeping your weight in your heels and chest lifted, bend your knees and sit your butt back as if sitting in a chair, getting your knees as close to 90 degrees as possible. 

• Return to standing. 

2. Sumo squats

What it works: Outer thighs, glutes, hamstrings, and quads.

How to do it: 

• Start with your feet wide and your toes turned out to the sides. 

• Bend your knees to 90 degrees, keeping your chest lifted, then return to standing. 

3. Forward lunges

What it works: Quads, glutes, and inner thighs.

How to do it: 

• Start with your feet together. 

• Take a large step to the front and bend both knees, then push off the front foot and return to standing. 

• Alternate sides.

4. Reverse lunges

What it works: Glutes, hamstrings, and inner thighs.

How to do it: 

• Start with your feet together. 

• Take a large step to the back and bend both knees, then push off the back foot and return to standing. 

• Alternate sides.

5. Lateral lunges

What it works: Inner and outer thighs, glutes, and hamstrings.

How to do it: 

• Start with your feet together. 

• Take a large step to the side and bend the knee, keeping the other leg straight, then push off the same foot and return to standing. 

• Alternate sides.

6. Romanian deadlifts

What it works: Glutes, back, and hamstrings.

How to do it: 

• Start with your feet hip-width apart and knees bent slightly, weight in your heels. 

• Send your butt back and hinge at the hips until your hands are past your knees and you feel a stretch in your hamstrings, then squeeze your butt to return to standing. 

7. Curtsy squats

What it works: Inner and outer thighs, glutes, hamstrings, and quads.

How to do it: 

• Start with your feet together. 

• Take a large step back with one foot, crossing it behind your front foot, and bend both knees to 90 degrees, then return to start. 

• Alternate sides.

8. Hip bridges

What it works: Glutes, inner thighs, and hamstrings.

How to do it: 

• Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat. 

• Squeeze your butt to press your hips up until your lower and middle back are off the ground, then lower back down.

9. Single-leg bridges

What it works: Glutes, inner thighs, and hamstrings.

How to do it: 

• Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat, then lift one foot off the ground. 

• Squeeze your butt to press your hips up until your lower and middle back are off the ground, then lower back down.

10. Side-lying leg lifts

What it works: Glutes and outer thighs. 

How to do it: 

• Come onto your side on the floor with your legs out straight, feet stacked, and elbow propped directly under your shoulder. 

• Keep your toes pointing forward and lift your leg up and down. 

11. Squat jumps

What it works: Quads, glutes, hamstrings, and calves.

How to do it: 

• Start with your feet shoulder-width apart. 

• Lower into a squat, then explode up and off the floor before landing back in a squat. 

12. Single-leg squats

What it works: Glutes, hamstrings, quads, and inner thighs. 

How to do it: 

• Prop one foot up on a bench or chair behind you (you can also lightly rest your toe on the floor behind you or extend your foot forward and lift it off the floor). 

• With your weight in your heel, lower into a squat on your standing leg, then return to standing.

13. Single-leg deadlifts

What it works: Glutes and hamstrings.

How to do it: 

• Put all your weight in one foot and bend the knee slightly. 

• Hinge at the hips and let your other foot drift up behind you until your leg and body are nearly parallel to the ground, then return to standing. 

14. Jumping lunges

What it works: Quads, glutes, calves, inner and outer thighs. 

How to do it: Start in a lunge, then push off both feet to explode up and switch legs in the air to land in the opposite lunge. 

15. Pulses

What it works: Glutes, hamstrings, and quads. 

How to do it: Come to your lowest point in any squat or lunge, then pulse up one inch and down one inch, maintaining a consistent rhythm.

Ready to work?

Lower-body workouts are simple to do and deliver big benefits for your health and fitness. And for days when you’re looking for a workout that works the lower body while also engaging the core and upper body—and getting in some cardio!—consider rowing. Rowing on a rowing machine like the Hydrow is the ultimate full-body workout, offering a powerful lower-body burn while working the arms, back, and core at the same time. 

Hydrow also offers an extensive library of workout content led by our team of world-class Athletes and filmed in gorgeous locations around the world. Our rowing, yoga, Pilates, strength training, mobility training, and circuit training workouts will transport you to stunning global destinations and keep you motivated to come back again and again. 

Learn more about the benefits of rowing and a Hydrow rowing machine today!