How to Step Ups

Step ups can be done at home or the gym and will work the legs and the glutes. Learn how to do step ups from a certified personal fitness trainer in this exercise video.

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Use chair or step
Hands on hips
Step up & tap foot
90 degree angle

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Amy McCauley has been a certified personal fitness trainer since 1995. She specializes in pilates, combat cardio, core conditioning and overall strength training. She works with clients ranging in age from 16 - 69. She has worked at Gold's Gym in Wilmington, NC since 2006. She loves her job because it gives her the opportunity to change peoples' lives in a positive way.

Hi. I'm going to demonstrate how to do a step-up while you're at home. You can also at the gym use a bench of some kind, about knee level. Make sure the chair is very stable so you don't fall over. We're going to put the foot right in middle. We're going to step up, touch and then drop back down. We've got a 90-degree angle from your ankle to your knee to your hip. We don't want it to be any higher than that. We're dropping from here, taking your hands and go on your hips, exhale and inhale. This a great work for the quadriceps and the hamstring and the glutes, so we got a lot of leg muscles working at the same time. Tap up, drop back down. If this is too challenging for you, find something a little bit lower than a 90-degree angle so that you're working from about a foot off the floor as opposed to about 2 or 3 feet off the floor. A 90-degree angle is what we want to achieve. We don't want to go any higher than that. An option is to come up with the knee and drop back down. The knee drawing up, that's going to engage the core muscles, and then draw it back down. So just find where you're comfortable in this. We don't want your bottom to drop at your ankle height. Make sure it stays just about parallel to that knee. That is how we do step-ups using a chair at home or use a bench in the gym.

How to Step Ups Video

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