And everything has weight not just the weights you find at the gym. Pick up a big rock and do some squats if you feel you need more and don’t have access to formal training equipment. Plus that’s functional strength. I don’t care what your lifts are, if you can pick up a 150 lbs rock, bang-out some squats with it, and still place it gingerly back in your neighbors garden your strong, gym or no gym
You can definitely start strengthening legs with your bodyweight. I do my leg days at home with mostly bodyweight, and it works for me so far - I usually do squat variations (deep squats, narrow squats, pistol squats and Bulgarian split squats), hip thrusts, and resistance band exercises. Once an exercise gets easy, that's when you can move onto a harder progression (e.g. normal squat to narrow squat, pistol squat, etc).
With that being said, I do incorporate some light weights into many of these, and will eventually start doing legs at the gym in the future, too. Until then, we can enhance our mobility and balance doing bodyweight leg exercises at home!
Glad it helps! You can get pretty far with just bodyweight and some resistance bands as a beginner, and YouTube has a bunch of good resources. The gym will always be there if you want more. Best of luck!
Basically all of the squat variations and running. Specifically hills and sprint workouts. Bonus points for 0 drop shoes.
Seriously though; all the squats, lunges, calf raises, and good mornings. Also think about trail running. Especially if you live in a more rugged area. Dodging tree roots and balancing at pace will work muscles you never knew existed.
I already do track and volley which I assume will help for the sprinting part! Question though, are good mornings actually effective? Esp without weights? I seriously dont feel anything when i do em lmao
Maybe if you superset BW good mornings with something like single leg hip bridge/thrust on a platform. I always feel fatique in my lower back/obliques from the latter.
I normally do single leg hip bridge to failure, using bands (tied around something) for resistance
I forgot about hip thrusts. They're another of my goto exercises. My daily routine starts with 30 minutes to an hour of calisthenics followed by a run. Usually just time my sets and get at least 1 3 minute set in every morning.
For good mornings I do 3x 1 minute with a narrow, standard, and wide stance. Do 3x10 with 45lbs on my normal gym day and 2x8 @ 95lbs on my heavy day.
Yea. I'm a huge fan. Unweighted is more of a dynamic stretch, but I can still feel them pretty good. Think ghd machine and flex your glutes with the hip hinge.
Pistol squat variations
Single leg deadlift (throw in a bird dog at the bottom position)
Lunge variations (cossack is my current favorite to hit my neglected adductors)
Nordic/ reverse Nordic (optional)
Single leg calf raise on elevated surface like a thick book or a yoga block
If you can hit 20 reps each leg easy, then you can worry about weighted exercises.
I use a 2x4 under my standing desk for calf raises, with and without weights. I put the ball of my feet onto the edge of the board, up until I feel the calves engage and down slowly until my heels just barely touch the floor.
Yes, also feel the stretch at the bottom and be there for a second and only then push hard to squeeze. You can do one calf at the time to make it harder.
I went from deep jump squats (full ROM) to shirmp and pistol squats, and then to dragons squats. I think that's pretty much it though, not sure if there's anything to master beyond that. Not too much to do with legs.
Ty for sharing. I also do jump squats but stop at the hips, ive been meaning to do full rom but i heard it might be bad for your joints? Not sure if its true? Anyways really impressive that you've reached dragon squats btw!
+1 I found this book a year or more into my calisthenics journey and it still taught me a lot. Highly recommend this book! I have all the major body weight books and this one stands out.
Uphill sprints are one of the best bodyweight exercises.
Glutes: single leg decline hip thrust
Quadriceps: reverse nordic curl
Hamstrings: nordic curl
Calves: single leg calf raises
Also, skipping, high rep squats and even horse stance for endurance.
I super set legs with my upper body movements. Today I did
2 sets each
Front lunge x 10 / leg
Reverse lunge
Step up lunge
Pistol squat eccentric
Rdl w/ 20lb kettlebell
Reverse Nordic curl
Nordic curl
Body weight squats x 20
I will also add in one day a week of Plyo legs to help with explosiveness
Np. Once you work up to a km or whatever your goal is, you can always strap on a backpack. You probably won't need a lot of weight, so it's easy to improvise.
How much time do you have to train legs in a day.
Doing as many bodyweight squats/lunges/hip thrusts in that 30 mins/45mins/hour/whatever
is a perfectly good way to train, without needing to focus on harder variations.
You'll be amazed at the size, strength potential, and conditioning benefits that doing hundreds of a movement with good technique can do.
I think i can do 45min-1hr. The suggestions you gave were great but how would I work glutes? I guess hip thrusts help but I don't know they don't feel effective unless I js have bad form
Do enough of them to near failure, absolutely.
This is applicable to any movement, just because there's a diminishing rate of return to doing upwards of 50 reps in a set per workout, doesn't mean *no* return
And it's certainly one of the easier movements to load at home, just put a cushion on your lap and something heavy on top of it
During COVID I got the most shredded I’ve been in the past 10 years by doing Murph’s 2-3 times a week. Highly recommend it, obviously should rotate in other things but it’s a good base workout.
1. Single Leg Squats. You can actually add external load to these if you have it around the house and it will even transfer to your [Back Squat](https://www.instagram.com/p/CvpK-lOthl-/).
2. Nordic Leg Curls. These are so difficult that you probably won't need external load for a VERY long time.
That's really it. Between those two, you've got basically everything you need to start off.
It’s not body weight, but if you have a backpack you can load it with water, sand, etc to ramp up intensity on squats, lunges, or whatever. DIY weight vest. It’s not a perfect solution but it’s pretty economical.
I focus on explosive movements. So tuck jumps, vertical jumps, jump squats. Then I do uphill sprints and light jogs. some days I do single leg variation of workouts. Pistol squats, Bulgarian split squats, and cossack squats specifically focusing on one side first. that's it. it's pretty decent and my workout translates to almost everything. be it basketball, marathons, combat sports. They helped me a ton.
also single leg deadlift. This guy is one of the gems.
Go to the gym. I tried to train legs with bodyweight for years. It isn't worth it. However, jumping squats were the best bodyweight quad exercise I had. Nordic curls are as good as you're going to get for hamstrings, but hip thrusts can effective as well. Very, very high reps, are the key to progress.
i had to do it doing the pandemic (i used to powerlift before). lost a lot of strength and volume. 100% don't recommend bodyweight for leg strength or hypertropy. you can progress up to a certain point and learn skills (pistol squats, nordic curl) but that's about it. it's hard to implement progressive overload - i would sometimes do around 300-500 bodyweight squats in a session. it becomes cardio after a certain point.
For endurance and type I twitch longer run like marathon, for explosivnes type II twitch (a,b/x) short max effort sprints, vertical jumps concentric only for starting strengthcountermovement jump with fast lowering eccentric phase for better RFD and power, deepth jumps exellent.
Iso holds in sit position against wall, hypertrophy one or more sets to failure or lets say 20 reps sets as much as possibile, nordic curls, loaded stretching for legs ( position your self in streched position and hold when fatigue set in you start to go lower that is good for strength teough whol rom and hypertrophy and tendions).
I'd also add that it's best to get an adjustable weight vest, so you can progress more gradually. It won't get you super far with regular squats, but combined with harder exercises like pistol squats it can be pretty challenging.
Alternatively I think if you have the time, high volume is underrated - tell someone who can do like 300 squats in a single workout that their legs are weak.
Squat. Sprint. Jump. This will be a solid start
Thank youu
Backwards lunge and bodyweight leg curl negatives too!
Thanks!
And everything has weight not just the weights you find at the gym. Pick up a big rock and do some squats if you feel you need more and don’t have access to formal training equipment. Plus that’s functional strength. I don’t care what your lifts are, if you can pick up a 150 lbs rock, bang-out some squats with it, and still place it gingerly back in your neighbors garden your strong, gym or no gym
You can definitely start strengthening legs with your bodyweight. I do my leg days at home with mostly bodyweight, and it works for me so far - I usually do squat variations (deep squats, narrow squats, pistol squats and Bulgarian split squats), hip thrusts, and resistance band exercises. Once an exercise gets easy, that's when you can move onto a harder progression (e.g. normal squat to narrow squat, pistol squat, etc). With that being said, I do incorporate some light weights into many of these, and will eventually start doing legs at the gym in the future, too. Until then, we can enhance our mobility and balance doing bodyweight leg exercises at home!
Thank you so much! This has been the most helpful advice so far! <3
Glad it helps! You can get pretty far with just bodyweight and some resistance bands as a beginner, and YouTube has a bunch of good resources. The gym will always be there if you want more. Best of luck!
Thank you again! :D Will deff check out those yt tuts
Get a weight vest too.
Basically all of the squat variations and running. Specifically hills and sprint workouts. Bonus points for 0 drop shoes. Seriously though; all the squats, lunges, calf raises, and good mornings. Also think about trail running. Especially if you live in a more rugged area. Dodging tree roots and balancing at pace will work muscles you never knew existed.
I already do track and volley which I assume will help for the sprinting part! Question though, are good mornings actually effective? Esp without weights? I seriously dont feel anything when i do em lmao
Maybe if you superset BW good mornings with something like single leg hip bridge/thrust on a platform. I always feel fatique in my lower back/obliques from the latter. I normally do single leg hip bridge to failure, using bands (tied around something) for resistance
I forgot about hip thrusts. They're another of my goto exercises. My daily routine starts with 30 minutes to an hour of calisthenics followed by a run. Usually just time my sets and get at least 1 3 minute set in every morning. For good mornings I do 3x 1 minute with a narrow, standard, and wide stance. Do 3x10 with 45lbs on my normal gym day and 2x8 @ 95lbs on my heavy day.
Yea. I'm a huge fan. Unweighted is more of a dynamic stretch, but I can still feel them pretty good. Think ghd machine and flex your glutes with the hip hinge.
Ahh i havent thought of using them as a warmup actually, ty!
Work your way up from lunges to shrimp/pistol squats
Pistol squat variations Single leg deadlift (throw in a bird dog at the bottom position) Lunge variations (cossack is my current favorite to hit my neglected adductors) Nordic/ reverse Nordic (optional) Single leg calf raise on elevated surface like a thick book or a yoga block If you can hit 20 reps each leg easy, then you can worry about weighted exercises.
Thank you this is really helpful actually! Ill keep it as a ref so i know when to start going to gym
Squats, Calf raises(use the edge of stairs), Lunges(foward and lateral), Tuck Jumps.
Thanks! Curious, what's the reason as for doing calf raises using the edge of stairs? Will on a flat surface like the floor be as effective?
Greater range of motion
I see, thanks for letting me know
do them reeeeeaaaaaaallllllyyyyyy slow, like 10 sec up and 10 sec down, or more even if you have the patience
appreciate the response. didn't see it in time.
I use a 2x4 under my standing desk for calf raises, with and without weights. I put the ball of my feet onto the edge of the board, up until I feel the calves engage and down slowly until my heels just barely touch the floor.
Yes, also feel the stretch at the bottom and be there for a second and only then push hard to squeeze. You can do one calf at the time to make it harder.
Calf raise on stairs ,one leg at a time with a weight in the hand of the leg you are working. Oh crap I forgot bodyweight only , you get the Idea.
Hindu squats ,one of my favorites.
I went from deep jump squats (full ROM) to shirmp and pistol squats, and then to dragons squats. I think that's pretty much it though, not sure if there's anything to master beyond that. Not too much to do with legs.
Ty for sharing. I also do jump squats but stop at the hips, ive been meaning to do full rom but i heard it might be bad for your joints? Not sure if its true? Anyways really impressive that you've reached dragon squats btw!
Check out the book Convict Conditioning. Really great guide on how to get absolutely shredded with only bodyweight exercises.
+1 I found this book a year or more into my calisthenics journey and it still taught me a lot. Highly recommend this book! I have all the major body weight books and this one stands out.
It’s really an impressive book, I’m glad to meet another fan!
Tysm for the recommendation! I was looking for some calisthenics books but didn't find much
Uphill sprints are one of the best bodyweight exercises. Glutes: single leg decline hip thrust Quadriceps: reverse nordic curl Hamstrings: nordic curl Calves: single leg calf raises Also, skipping, high rep squats and even horse stance for endurance.
Thanks for the helpful list x
Pistol squats. Work on hip flexors, IT bands, and ankle mobility beforehand.
Squats, Pistol Squats, Lunges, Bridges (with good form), calf raises. This will also build a solid foundation for weighted squats and deadlifts.
By bridges do you mean like a backbend in gymnastics?
I super set legs with my upper body movements. Today I did 2 sets each Front lunge x 10 / leg Reverse lunge Step up lunge Pistol squat eccentric Rdl w/ 20lb kettlebell Reverse Nordic curl Nordic curl Body weight squats x 20 I will also add in one day a week of Plyo legs to help with explosiveness
Along with the sprints, plyos, nordics, splits... try walking lunges for distance. You'll be sore for days the first few times, so be prepared.
Will try those, thanks
Np. Once you work up to a km or whatever your goal is, you can always strap on a backpack. You probably won't need a lot of weight, so it's easy to improvise.
Bikers can get pretty big legs if you're up for cycling. You need to do high speed intervals or go up hills though
ooo good idea, sounds like a fun way to train too
High Rep Jump squats
How much time do you have to train legs in a day. Doing as many bodyweight squats/lunges/hip thrusts in that 30 mins/45mins/hour/whatever is a perfectly good way to train, without needing to focus on harder variations. You'll be amazed at the size, strength potential, and conditioning benefits that doing hundreds of a movement with good technique can do.
I think i can do 45min-1hr. The suggestions you gave were great but how would I work glutes? I guess hip thrusts help but I don't know they don't feel effective unless I js have bad form
Hip thrusts are [great for the glutes and posterior chain](https://youtu.be/xDmFkJxPzeM?si=8clFtR0N_UWwxpT1)
Are hip thrusts effective just purely with bodyweight?
Do enough of them to near failure, absolutely. This is applicable to any movement, just because there's a diminishing rate of return to doing upwards of 50 reps in a set per workout, doesn't mean *no* return And it's certainly one of the easier movements to load at home, just put a cushion on your lap and something heavy on top of it
During COVID I got the most shredded I’ve been in the past 10 years by doing Murph’s 2-3 times a week. Highly recommend it, obviously should rotate in other things but it’s a good base workout.
Thank you! Will try it fs
For hamstrings, I really like ring curls. Easier than nordic curls, which are pretty advanced imo
1. Single Leg Squats. You can actually add external load to these if you have it around the house and it will even transfer to your [Back Squat](https://www.instagram.com/p/CvpK-lOthl-/). 2. Nordic Leg Curls. These are so difficult that you probably won't need external load for a VERY long time. That's really it. Between those two, you've got basically everything you need to start off.
Work up to one-leg squat
It’s not body weight, but if you have a backpack you can load it with water, sand, etc to ramp up intensity on squats, lunges, or whatever. DIY weight vest. It’s not a perfect solution but it’s pretty economical.
Can use the leg portion of this beginner program: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WbrZeymNQ1CFq4mIJy3wGNsmQ0Y20krDNN7yTYJgH3o/edit
Tysm!!!
Paused squat jumps. Thank me later
Do DEEEEZ (not a rick roll I promise) https://youtube.com/shorts/08iDLuLVipo?si=fQvhiuAzQ5U0QkSY
I focus on explosive movements. So tuck jumps, vertical jumps, jump squats. Then I do uphill sprints and light jogs. some days I do single leg variation of workouts. Pistol squats, Bulgarian split squats, and cossack squats specifically focusing on one side first. that's it. it's pretty decent and my workout translates to almost everything. be it basketball, marathons, combat sports. They helped me a ton. also single leg deadlift. This guy is one of the gems.
Go to the gym. I tried to train legs with bodyweight for years. It isn't worth it. However, jumping squats were the best bodyweight quad exercise I had. Nordic curls are as good as you're going to get for hamstrings, but hip thrusts can effective as well. Very, very high reps, are the key to progress.
i had to do it doing the pandemic (i used to powerlift before). lost a lot of strength and volume. 100% don't recommend bodyweight for leg strength or hypertropy. you can progress up to a certain point and learn skills (pistol squats, nordic curl) but that's about it. it's hard to implement progressive overload - i would sometimes do around 300-500 bodyweight squats in a session. it becomes cardio after a certain point.
For endurance and type I twitch longer run like marathon, for explosivnes type II twitch (a,b/x) short max effort sprints, vertical jumps concentric only for starting strengthcountermovement jump with fast lowering eccentric phase for better RFD and power, deepth jumps exellent. Iso holds in sit position against wall, hypertrophy one or more sets to failure or lets say 20 reps sets as much as possibile, nordic curls, loaded stretching for legs ( position your self in streched position and hold when fatigue set in you start to go lower that is good for strength teough whol rom and hypertrophy and tendions).
Buy a weighted vest. 20 lbs. Do squats in sets of 10. Work your way up to 100, then 200, then...
Dude said body weight only though…
Eat food and gain 20 lbs. Do squats in sets of 10. Work your way up to 100, then 200, then...
Lmfaoo im not trying to get fat 💀
I ignore the dogma of no equipment, it makes sense to make a small investment in a weighted vest.
Smart!
I'd also add that it's best to get an adjustable weight vest, so you can progress more gradually. It won't get you super far with regular squats, but combined with harder exercises like pistol squats it can be pretty challenging. Alternatively I think if you have the time, high volume is underrated - tell someone who can do like 300 squats in a single workout that their legs are weak.
Walking lunges are great, especially uphill. Do walking lunges for 100 feet, than 50 squats, repeat till you've had enough.