Lower Body Workout Routine Options, Machines, Dumbbells or Body Weight?

Developing a lower body workout routine that actually works for your body can be challenging. You may identify with some of the most common obstacles that ordinary people come across when they decide to start working this area of the body:

Limited access to weight machines and other equipment.

Lack of knowledge about what exercises are effective and which ones are a waste of time.

Limited information about different movements and modifications of harder movements.

Inaccurate beliefs.

Lack of motivation

Inaccurate beliefs and the lack of knowledge about what exercises to perform are big problems for many people who want to start a good lower body workout routine. One of the most common inaccurate beliefs is that you have to use weight machines or other fitness equipment to work the lower body effectively.

It's true that the machines you see at gyms can be great tools for working the lower body muscles. But that doesn't mean that they’re vital for getting in a great workout. Far from it. You can use the weight from your own body to strengthen, tone and challenge the muscles in your lower body.

Here is just a small sampling of classic exercises that can be incorporated into a lower body workout routine with great results:

Squats. Stand with your legs about shoulder width apart. Have your hands either out in front or folded in front of your chest. Have your toes pointed slightly outwards. Keep your chest out, your midsection firm and head facing frontwards. Now squat as if you were going to sit down, leaning into your heels, until your backside is inline or parallel to the floor. Then using your thighs and butt push yourself back up again. Do not lock your knees out when returning to standing position. Keep your knees soft and the movement flowing. Continue with the second squat, then third etc until you have completed the set.

Lunges. Stand with your feet together. Keep your chest out and midsection firm, do not arch your back. With your hands on your hips or by your sides, step forward with a large stride. Bend both your knees. Your front leg should be at a 90 degree angle (your knee and shin should be in a straight line with your ankle). Your back leg should be extended behind you and your knee should be nearly touching the floor. Now with your front foot push up carefully to starting position. Keep yourself steady throughout the exercise. After you have performed the required amount of reps on that leg, swap to the other leg.

Step-Ups, along with various floor and mat exercises.

With just these exercises alone you can create a lower body workout routine that is very effective for sculpting and shaping your legs, hips, butt and thighs. And of course there are modifications you can also implement for each of these movements.

For instance, you can do a variety of different types of squats to target different lower body muscles in different ways:

Sumo squats with your legs very wide apart, squats with legs placed together, single-legged squats that exhaust the muscles one side at a time.

Including a wide variety of floor exercises that mimic the work done on larger weight machines can really work wonders for your thighs and butt. You may need to do more reps than you would do of a movement with weight machines, but a lower body workout routine using only body weight can be highly effective.

Those who don't want to add bulk to the thighs and butt are often better off working with very light weight or no weight at all with this area of the body.