Lower Body Workouts

Squats can be considered to be the most important and also one of the primary workouts for the lower body, with obvious emphasis on the legs. Squats can be considered to be analogous to the bench press exercise that is performed on the upper body. Since squats work out the long muscles of your lower body, they not only work out the entire legs in terms of the quadriceps, hamstrings, and calf muscles, but they also strengthen and stone the lower back, and lower abs, and to some extent the upper abs, upper back, as well as shoulders and arms.

The squats are also one of the toughest exercises to do, but once you get the momentum, you can really ramp up the count manifold and even surprise yourself. This is one exercise that will always leave a sculpting impact on your thighs.

Another way to tone up and bulk up your lower body muscles is to do dead lifts. The concept is simple. Just lift the weight with both your arms. Dead lifts are a great way to tone your arms, shoulders, chest, back, hips, butts, abs, thighs, calf muscles and everything in between. Although, it is advised that you do dead lifts,only on days when you are less lethargic and really up for it. Totally refrain from doing dead lifts if you are tired or not in the right frame of mind. Though dead lifts can help with toning each and every muscle group of the body, they are also the exercise that causes the most extensive of muscle damages, if you make an unlucky twist or pull in your exhaustion.

A third alternative in toning up the lower body muscles is to perform the power clean exercise. The power clean exercise can put every single fiber of your lower body to test. Is is similiar to a combination of squats ,dead lifts and shoulder presses, all of them rolled into one. This is one of the toughest work outs to do in building up your lower body muscles. This is one of the kind of exercises that you will witness Olympians perform.

In the power clean exercise, you bend over and lift a bar with weights on it. This is followed by dead lifting the weight all the way up to the level of the neck. Once the dead lift is at the level of the neck, you raise the bar with weights higher and hold it over your head, and then you bring it down.

An advanced version of the power clean exercise involves taking the bar with weights which are above your head and lowering them still further behind your neck. This is followed by raising the bar with weights again over the head, before bringing it all the way down to rest on the floor again. Power clean, irrespective of whether it's the first version discussed above, or the second one is a very advanced level work out, and it is not recommended for a first timer without the supervision and permission of a professional trainer.

Thus you are now fully aware of how you can perform the three basic core lower body workouts to bulk up your lower body muscles. Of the above three core lower body work outs, squats and dead lifts are most widespread in terms of their popularity, and once you have really mastered and advanced at these two exercises, then it you can take the next progressive step of performing a power clean in consultation with your trainer.