Who Wants Firm Thighs & A Tight Rear?

It always makes me laugh when I see those infomercials claiming that the ultimate thigh and buns toner has been developed. The catch is that it does work – at getting your hard earned money that is. You honestly don’t need any of that to get the results you want. All you need is a set of free weights and someone to tell you the truth.

While we are being honest, you actually don’t even need weights to start off with. Your very own body weight will do the trick in the beginning. Workouts such as deadlifts, squats and lunges are the key to getting those toned pins, and they do work. So keep your money for something useful and forget those “new and improved miracle machines” they try to force on you.

We’re going to focus on the lunges. If you haven’t tried lungs before, you are missing out on some serious toning exercise. With most exercises there are quite a few different variants, but the best (or at least my favorite) is the walking lunge. The name sort of explains itself, where you would stand in one position for normal lunges, here you keep moving forward. The cool thing as I mentioned above is that in the beginning you can use your own body weight for this exercise until you feel comfortable enough to start using a set of dumbbells with it.

Here are a few tips to help you with your walking lunges.

• Make sure that you step far enough forward so the shin in front stays vertical and the front thigh is pretty much parallel to the floor at the bottom of your step.
• Your back leg should be bent at the knee, but stop short of touching the floor. Your back knee should never touch the floor when performing these exercises.
• Do a split second pause when you reach the top of each of your steps before lunging again.

There you have your basic walking lunge. There are some really cool variants to the lunge and each one can help you work different parts of the thigh muscle (and, of course the butt).

Upon your step, if you angle your foot outward, the outer thigh gets some extra working, while if you angle your foot inward upon stepping forward, it really gives the butt and hips a fair stretch. The inward angle of stepping is also known as cross-over lunge.

Remember to set yourself some challenges. Once your body weight becomes too easy to really get a good workout, get yourself a pair of dumbbells and hold one on each side when performing these exercises.

Give these exercises a go, because once you have you will never look at those thigh machines ever again as you will have good looking legs in no time.

Advertisement