7 lower body moves to do at home
A few lower body flows to open your hips up and get your body sweating a little bit when you don’t feel like leaving the house.
Stand with your feet a little wider than your shoulder, with your toes pointing just slightly out. Keep your hips over your knees and ankles (all in one line). Keep your shoulders back as you drop down – sticking your booty out and keeping your core tight. Move your butt all the way down – as deep as you can go – while maintaining a tight core and open chest. Try to get your hips to drop just below your knees before pressing through your heels (keeping your feet on the ground, spreading the floor) to raise back up to the standing position. Do fifteen squats per set.
Stand with your feet parallel to each other, hip-width apart. As you press forward, keep your chest straight, shoulders back and your hands in front of your chest, clasped lightly together. Take a step forward with your left leg, dropping to your right knee. Your front knee should be at a 90 degree angle. Push through your left foot, keeping it flat on the ground, to stand back up before stepping back into a reverse lunge with the same knee dropping to the ground. Do each leg to the front five times and the back five times for a total of ten lunges per leg, per set.
Grab a chair, if you need one, and stand in front of it with your feet hip-width apart and parallel to each other. Then, stick your booty out as you lower to the ground, balancing on your left leg and extending your right leg. Maintain a tight core as you move down, with your hands in front of your chest. Briefly touch the chair before returning straight up and repeating the movement on the same leg (without lowering the leg in the air all the way to the ground). Do your left leg five times before switching to your right leg.
This movement is helpful for improving your squat – in depth and flexibility. Lower into a squat position and then drop one knee down in front of your body, while rotating your torso to the side of the leg still up. When your knee meets the ground, push your hips forward and hold for a moment before returning to the squat position and repeating the movement to the other side. Try five reps on each side, for ten reps total per set.
Sit back against your hips, with your knees in front of you and your hands in front of you like you are in a squat position on the ground. Rotate your body, keeping your heels on the ground and your knees spread apart from each other, all the way to the right so that your right heel is touching your left knee and both are flat to the ground. As you move to the other side, lean back and maintain the space between your knees. Avoid lifting your feet off of the ground as you rotate to the other side and lay your legs flat on the ground – keeping your body upright. Move side-to-side ten times total (five per side) for one set.
Use the same instructions as above, but this time before you switch sides, tighten your glutes and core to move your body up so that your foot to your shin is to the ground but so that your quads are straight up. Push your hips all the way forward for the stretch before you drop back down – pushing your glutes back during the drop – and then enter into the same flow as the last movement to move your body to the other side. Repeat each side five times for a total of 10 reps per set.
Add everything together. Begin with the squat, then drop down to the knee-drop squat, move into the side-to-side flow and then finish with the advanced side-to-side flow. Do this final, complex movement a total of five times – keeping your body in position throughout the flow.
Repeat the entire cycle three times, for three sets.
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