Effective Lower Body Exercises for Home or Travel

The best lower body exercises are the ones that can be done anywhere with little or no equipment. Being single with no kids may allow for wasted time in the gym doing twelve sets per lower body part, but once in the real world of spouse, kids and job, those two hour gym visits are history. The good news is this should be a welcome change because the old-school bodybuilder, weights and machine type workout routines can do more damage in the long run as compared to a smart, properly structured lower body exercise routine.

Exercise machines and weights will always have their place in fitness - but they are not the only way to achieve a strong, well toned lower body. The right selection of lower body exercises can produce a sufficient training stimulus to bring about desired changes, continuous progress and visible results. As health clubs and fitness centers are filled with an endless amount of exercise machines and weight training gear, it is in their best interest to promote weight and machine type workout programs. Naturally, members develop a dependency on these types of workouts because they don't learn any alternative exercise methods. Some fitness experts argue that workouts with machines and weights are the only path to true lower body improvements. The reality is, nothing can be further from the truth.

The problems with this mind-set range from the 'more is better' syndrome to the 'I got out of my routine' excuse. To develop a strong, fit and defined lower body your choice of exercises must be realistic for long term adherence and they must consist of exercises that can be done at home or while on the road if you are traveling. As a career personal trainer and fitness consultant I've had the opportunity to work with many people at various stages of life. The people who maintain long term fitness success are the ones who structure their lower body exercise routines so that they are 'portable' - meaning if they don't have a gym available to them - it's not going to prevent them from getting their lower body exercise session in. This ties into one of the essential elements of fitness success - consistency. Staying on a regular exercise schedule will yield the best long term results. Starting and stopping a routine that is unrealistic will yield harmful results - this is a fact.

Lower body workouts consisting of body weight leg exercises produce an incredible amount of natural strength while providing gender specific improvements in muscular development and appearance. While women seek more of a toning and firming effect, men seek more of a lean muscle building effect with muscle group definition. An old fitness myth exists that has people believing that a woman will develop muscles like a man if she follows the same type of lower body exercise program. The exercise program does not dictate this result. It's the gender/genetic differences of the male and female DNA that dictate the specific results that men and women derive from well rounded, and properly structured lower body exercises. Not the type or intensity of the workout routine itself.

Yes, we sometimes see women who look like male bodybuilders or power-lifters - but these abnormal looks can almost always be traced back to some method of pharmaceutical enhancement. For example, taking anabolic steroids or growth hormone to develop as much muscle mass as possible is one way for a woman to lose the fit, sexy and feminine look. Nothing against them - but they do not represent the definition of fitness - especially for women.

No matter if you are male or female, the benefits of properly structured lower body exercises that do not rely on the confines of a gym or fitness center can give you all the results you could ever want, in a program that can easily be followed for life. After all, isn't that what true fitness is about?

Don't get rid of your health club membership - especially if you enjoy doing some of your lower body workouts there. But it would be wise for you to develop a body-weight leg exercise routine for you to follow at home or while you are 'on the road' - so you don't develop over-training injuries or find yourself missing several weeks of exercise sessions because you were traveling or just 'didn't have time to get to the gym'.

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Fitness Consultant and Pro Trainer, Joey Atlas, is the mastermind behind the Best Lower Body Exercises and Workouts for Ladies. And see Stretching for Fitness Flexibility.

5 Great Reasons Why We Need to Bodyweight Exercise

I had never thought of sharing on “why exercise” and always assumed that we all believed and agreed that it was an essential part of everyone’s lifestyle regardless of whether one had the time or discipline to do it, until about two years ago I gradually pulled myself out from a sedentary lifestyle and I established a workout regimen in the morning and started to read more about the different types of workout such as aerobic training, resistance exercise and weight bearing activities. I reckon that exercising may be very often emphasized by all, but sometimes, its benefits may not be so clear and obvious to everyone.

Helps Strengthen Your Heart

Aerobic exercises benefit the circulation of your blood through your heart and blood vessels, that is, your cardiovascular system. They make our heart work harder, pump more blood, and reduce the risk of developing heart disease. With each beat of your heart, a surge of blood is pumped into your body's intricate web of blood vessels. The pressure exerted on your artery walls as blood passes through helps keep the blood flowing smoothly (what you know as ‘blood pressure’). A build-up of plaques in your arteries, caused by cholesterol in your bloodstream can affect your blood flow and cause serious damage to your cardiovascular system.

A workout on a regular basis benefits your heart because it helps lower the buildup of plaques in arteries by increasing the concentration of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (the "good" cholesterol) and decreasing the concentration of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (the "bad" cholesterol) in your blood, while keeping the blood pressure at the optimal level. As a result, your heart is able to do a better job in delivering oxygen to all parts of your body. Blood travels more efficiently, bringing much-needed oxygen from your lungs and nutrients to the rest of the body. That’s why people generally feel more refreshed and energetic after exercising.

Want to consider some aerobic activities? Try swimming, basketball, rope skipping, jogging (or brisk walking), in-line skating, soccer, or biking.

Maintains Strong Bones and Muscles

I am sure most of us have tried doing push-ups, weight lifting in some form, or repeatedly used your muscles to counter some kind of resistance. These are called resistance exercises which the experts believe could strengthen our muscles; preserve bone mass, increase bone density. Regular resistance training can help prevent the bone-weakening disease, osteoporosis.

Walking and jogging are also important activities that bear your body's weight and help build strong muscles and bones. Other resistance workout include pull-ups, running, biking, and rowing.

Helps Manage Your Weight

This benefit is well-known to all who are weight conscious or trying to lose the extra pounds. Your body needs a certain amount of calories every day just to function. If you eat more calories than your body needs, it may be stored as excess fat. For instance, if you have an excess of 10kg fat, and each gram has some 9 calories, then you have 90000 calories for your body to use!

Exercising helps you achieve or maintain a healthy weight by utilizing and burning the extra calories. And if you exercise, your body works harder and needs more fuel. Even after you stop exercising, your body continues to burn calories at a modestly increased rate for a few hours. The more intensely you workout, the more calories you burn. By burning more calories than you take in, you can reduce body fat, giving you a healthier body composition. Losing body fat can make you look and feel better and can reduce your risk of obesity.

Induces Quality Sleep at Night

Many people who have problems sleeping find doing moderate exercise at least three hours before bedtime help in relaxing and sleeping better at night. The recent Hibernation Diet Theory teaches that regular exercise could activate production of recovery hormones during sleep, increases our body’s metabolic rate and promotes fat-burning. It makes a powerful association between poor sleep and obesity, a disease that has been rising dramatically in developed countries and has reached epidemic levels in the United States. While most of us would associate poor weight control with aging, low metabolism rate, and poor eating habits, many other research studies have also reported and pointed to the relationship between insufficient sleep and weight gain.

So start today, get a good night's sleep, aim for eight hours a night if you can, and add resistance workouts will speed up your weight loss and the body will worker harder at night.

Puts You in a Better Mood

We all know that it definitely feels good to have a strong, flexible body that can do all the activities you enjoy and be able to move your arms and legs flexibly without feeling tightness or pain. But you may not know that exercising can actually put you in a better mood.

Exercise combats depression by activating the neurotransmitters, which are basically chemicals used by our nerve cells to communicate with one another and often associated with avoiding depression. The balance of these neurotransmitters, namely serotonin and norepinephrine plays a role in how we respond to daily events. When experiencing depression, our level of serotonin, norepinephrine or both may be out of equilibrium. Workouts may help synchronize those brain chemicals.

Exercising also stimulates the production of endorphins, another type of neurotransmitters that produce feelings of well-being, provide for "natural" pain relief, and help you relax.

Sounds good? If you just had a tough day at work and need to let off some steam, go for a workout or a brisk 30-minute walk to calm yourself down.

Well, if you have not any form of physical training for a long while and find it a pain to do so, I suggest that you start doing it 2 times a week and slowly increasing to 3 and then 5 times or more a week. You can do 10 or 15 minutes bouts of workout each time to make up a 30 minutes session a day.

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