Muscles that layer the inner and outer thighs, giving your legs shape from a frontal or posterior view, include the adductor longus, magnus and brevis, to name a few. These muscles are responsible for pulling the leg toward and/or away from the medial (central) line of the body. Strengthening these muscles helps define and tighten the lower body. Your legs are stronger than your arms, thus slower to fatigue and develop. Variety is a key component to achieving optimum results. Using workout DVDs is one way to exhaust the inner and outer thigh muscles.
No Equipment Necessary
You do not need weights to exhaust the lower body muscles. Kelly Coffey's "30 Minutes to Fitness: Body Training" offers two short, well-cued workouts that use your own body weight for resistance. It includes classic moves such as squats and leg lifts. Kelly integrates challenging movements with a variety of intense body positions. One workout is all standing and the other all floor work, for maximum variety. "Ilaria's BodyStrikes" is a straightforward program focused on lower body toning. By performing these exercises you can reshape your legs without using any equipment (your own body weight provides all the resistance). The sequence of exercises works your legs in every direction and in every plane. Sections progress in level of challenge.
Weighted Workouts
"Squeeze: Lower Body Challenge" offers five standing routines. The instructor uses light dumbbells to perform a series of unique 1-inch pulsing movements that enable you to work your muscles on the deepest level. Subtle exercise variations shift the intensity. In 30 minutes you'll target every lower body muscle, and your legs will be quivering with fatigue. Tweaking classic exercises slightly challenges your muscles for ultimate definition. "Cathe Friedrich's Gym-Style Legs" is an advanced lower body routine using heavy weights. You start with variations of classic standing exercises followed by tough floor work, such as pulsed adductor/abductor exercises using a band. Cathe's cuing is clear, and her form is excellent. You'll need several sets of dumbbells, a stability ball, a six-foot Dyna-Band, and a high step-up bench.
Unique Lower-Body Workouts
Classic standing, floor work, and weighted exercises are effective, but there are other ways to work your lower body. "Jennifer Kries' Pilates Method" features three-dimensional training. This DVD offers two short workouts (less than 30 minutes each) that blend ballet, Pilates and yoga with traditional flexibility and toning exercises. This workout goes beyond surface body sculpting to improve the power and flexibility of your deepest leg muscles. Kari Anderson is a Joffrey-trained ballerina and the 1994 IDEA Instructor of the Year. "Kari Anderson's Angles, Lines & Curves 2" features dynamic, full range of motion exercises. The routine also blends yoga, Pilates, and ballet. The moves are fluid and graceful, but extremely challenging. You'll build lower body strength, balance and flexibility.
References
- "NASM Essentials of Personal Fitness Training, 3rd Edition;" M.C. Clark et al.; 2007
- Exercise Videos Reviews
- "Real Simple Magazine;" Plug In, Work Out; October 2004
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