Skinny Ms: 7 Best Ways to Get Lean and Toned Legs

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

7 Best Ways to Get Lean and Toned Legs

What are the best ways to get lean and toned legs? Everyone wants slim smooth thighs, a perky butt, and rock-hard calves. Yet, getting them involves tough workouts and commitment. For the strongest, sexiest legs, we recommend a two-part approach.

First, for lean toned legs you have to put on muscle around your thighs. Strong thighs not only look good, but they’re also great for your mobility. Gaining leg muscle means doing weighted squats, lunges, and deadlifts. However, strength training isn’t the only requirement.

Many of us keep excess weight around our thighs. This soft fatty tissue makes muscle growth hard to see. You might be making excellent progress, yet not be able to properly appreciate it.

Unfortunately, we can’t choose where we lose weight. Our genetics and lifestyle dictate where those extra pounds go, whether they’ll be store around our middles or our thighs. We (sadly) can’t tell our bodies to keep the booty and lose fat only around the stomach and thighs.

In order to reduce thigh fat, we need to drop overall body fat. The best ways to do this is cleaning our diets and doing cardio exercises.

In this workout, we’ve chosen 7 best exercises to get lean and toned legs. You’ll be doing weighted moves to put on plenty of muscle, yet following a fast-paced routine that raises your heart rate and burns fat.

For strength training we’re using goblet squats (make sure to use a weight that’s challenging), split squats, one-legged deadlifts, and donkey kicks. The squat jumps and reverse lunges with front kicks will be your cardio exercises.

Finally, we also incorporated a yoga pose, Warrior II, which challenges your endurance, prevents the muscle from becoming too tight, and improves your balance.

You’ll perform each move for 45 seconds. In order to get results, perform the move at a quick and steady pace. Don’t let yourself slow down. You’ll have 15-second recovery periods in between moves.

If you like this workout, we suggest doing it 1-2 times per week, increasing the weights slowly as you grow stronger. You can also add dumbbells to the split squat to make the move harder.

Try it out and let us know how it goes in the comments!

The Workout-

What You’ll Need: a medium dumbbell (10-25 lb.), a set of light dumbbells (2-8 lb.), a bench or step, and a mat or towel to lay on the floor.

Use the medium dumbbell to perform goblet squats and the light dumbbells for one-leg deadlifts

What to Do: Perform each move for 45 seconds, resting 15 seconds in between each move. Complete all moves and repeat.

Beginners: 2 rounds
Intermediate: 4 rounds
Advanced 6 rounds

Below, we’ve included videos showing how to perform each move. Using proper form helps prevent injuries and ensures you’re getting the most out of your workout.

Exercises:
1. Goblet Squat
2. Squat Jumps
3. Bulgarian Split Squats (45 seconds each side)
4. Warrior II Pose (45 seconds each side)
5. Reverse Lunge with Front Kick (45 seconds each side)
6. One-Leg Deadlift (45 seconds each side)
7. Donkey Kicks

Goblet Squat