Strong leg muscles not only help maintain range of motion and function, but help you sit and stand. The leg muscles, tendons and ligaments improve mobility for all age groups, but enhanced lower body stability also helps seniors prevent falls. Talk to your doctor about leg exercises you can do at home to help improve leg strength, endurance and balance, as well as help you with standing.
Quadriceps
Your quadriceps muscles are elongated muscles found on the front of your thighs. They enable you to straighten and extend your leg and insert near the hip joint and extend down to your knee joint. Keeping these muscles toned and strong will help you sit and stand with stability.
An effective exercise for strengthening the quadriceps is a lunge. Older people fearing a fall may perform a lunge holding onto the back of a chair or other sturdy object. Stand with your feet together. Take a large step with your right foot and bend the knee, lowering your body down toward the floor. Push yourself back up with the right foot and repeat the lunge on the left side. Do 5 to 10 lunges on each side.
Buttocks
Your buttocks, or gluteus maximus muscles, are some of the largest in your body. Enabling hip and thigh movement, your buttocks perform muscle actions in conjunction with the quadriceps and hamstring muscles found on the back of the thigh and facilitate sitting and standing.
Tone your buttocks muscles and your upper leg muscles by performing plies. Stand with your feet wider than shoulder-distance apart, toes facing outward. Slowly lower your body, holding in your abdominal muscles, tightening the buttocks and pointing your tailbone toward the floor. Go down as far as you can while maintaining stability and then push yourself upright using your heels. Repeat 5 to 10 times.
Hamstrings
Hamstring muscles are found on the back of the thigh. They are a large cluster of muscles made up of the biceps femoris and the semitendinosus and semimembranosus muscles. The power of the hamstrings helps you to stand from a seated position.
Work and strengthen the hamstrings by performing squats. For example, hold onto a sturdy object if needed. Stand with your feet slightly wider than shoulder-distance apart. Lower your buttocks toward the floor, holding in your lower abs as you bend your knees, pretending you're getting ready to sit down.
Lower Legs
Your calves and your Achilles tendon also help you to stand, providing balance for your torso as you rise from a seated position. Exercise your calf muscles by sitting in a chair, feet flat on the floor in front of you. Lift your heels off the floor, contracting until you feel tension in the ball of your calf. Release and repeat 10 times.
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