Bodyweight Circuit To Bulk The Legs

Bulk up the legs with these simply but effective at home bodyweight circuit.

Skinny legs are shared by both men and women, fitness buffs and slouchers, weight lifters and runners, regardless of what many people do to try and improve their chicken leg appearance, it can still be hard to build attractive leg muscle. Now, through modern research, several old and new fitness approaches have been shown to help grow those pigeon legs into muscular masterpieces. It really comes down to both diet and exercise.

Weightlifting is a great way to improve overall appearance; and when it comes to improving leg size, some bodybuilders get it right. Unfortunately some don't. And all the squats in the world won't make a difference if there isn't a targeted diet to go along with exercise. That's why many bodybuilders fail to build their skinny legs into powerhouses to match their mammoth bodies. The diet part of their exercise equation is missing.

As for runners, they often see worse gains than their bodybuilder buddies. In fact, runners are often notorious for having skinny legs -- even men and women who once had impressive drumsticks end up with skinny runner legs.

It's important for runners to include some resistance-based exercises (like weightlifting) into their routine, especially with their legs. Not only can this shave a few seconds off their overall time, but it can help runners maintain or even build full, attractive legs.

For anybody with skinny legs, the following tips should build some muscle when followed for 6 months to a year. As for muscle tone, most people see gains within a couple weeks.

FUEL YOUR MUSCLE GROWTH

To make a long story short, protein builds muscle -- even leg muscle. But not all protein is equal. Some foods are better than others at providing adequate protein to fuel muscle growth. To build leg muscle, start with the foods listed below:

* eggs

* liver

* kidneys

* beef

* fish

* chicken and turkey

* milk, yogurt, and cheese

* nuts

* beans

* peas

* some grains (especially barley)

Don't overcook meats. Overcooking your food can actually breakdown and damage protein and other nutrients your body needs to build muscle. Try baking meats instead of frying, it's easier to control the temperature. Steaming vegetables instead of boiling also keeps more nutrients in your foods.

Most nutritionist advise 1 1/2 grams of protein for every pound of body weight each day, for maximum muscle growth. With this type of diet, it's easy to fuel the muscles in your legs for proper growth.

DRINK, DRINK, DRINK

You've probably read it before, but it's got to be said again. Drink plenty of water. I personally try to make 8 glasses of 12 ounce water per day part of my diet. And all that water doesn't need to be from the tap. Include fruits and vegetables as part of your daily amount. Melon (like watermelon and honeydew) are a huge source of water. They're really flavorful too.

LEG PRESSES

Exercise is the most important thing you can do to build leg muscles. By focusing on just your legs and making most of your workouts push those muscles to their limits, you'll definitely build more attractive legs.

Perform the leg press at the gym using a machine by the same name.

* Sit on machine with back on padded support. Place your feet on platform and grasp handles to sides.

* Push the platform away by extending your knees and hips. Return and repeat.

If your not a member of a Gym then try squats with your finger tips touching the side of your temple and use good form by squating with your knees bent to just over 90% with your back straight.

LUNGES

This is one of the best at home bodyweight exercises for your legs and butt muscles:

* Stand with feet 3 to 4 inches apart, with hands on hips. Starting with your right leg, take a giant step forward. Your toes and knee are pointed directly in front of your body.

* Bend your right knee slightly, with your whole foot on the floor. Your left heel lifts up.

* Lower your body straight down from this position. Your front knee must lower down over your ankle, or behind your shoelaces.

* Raise your body and bring your left leg in to return to the standing position.

* Repeat with your left leg. Alternate right and left each time.

CALF RAISES

* Grasp a dumbbell in one hand to side.

* Position toes and balls of feet on calf block with arches and heels extending off.

* Place hand on support for balance. Lift other leg to rear by bending knee.

* Raise heels by extending ankles as high as possible. Lower heels by bending ankles until calves are stretched. Repeat. Continue with opposite leg.

Fuel your workouts, drink plenty of water, and perform exercises that really hit those leg muscles. Before you know it, you'll turn your skinny poles into shapely legs you'll be excited to show off in shorts.

Military Workout On Video

Here is a quick body weight military style workout for you to check out. It contains 6 exercises for you to do if you need a quick but effective workout.


Check out this military style workout.

Stay Safe When Keeping Fit

There are many benefits that you will experience when you begin to take regular exercise. You will look younger, feel younger, have more energy and increase your chances of living a longer life. However, if you have not done any form of regular exercise before or you are starting out again after a long lay-off then, you need to approach it in the proper way.

The proper way is to start off slowly and build up your body strength and stamina gradually over a period of time. A good way to start is by walking. Taking a brisk walk for 20 or 30 minutes a day over a 4 week period is a great way to get started. In the first few days you will commonly experience soreness and tightness in the muscles. This is a sign that the muscles are being worked. This is nothing to worry about as the pain will subside after a few days. It is not advisable that you overdo it in the first week or so as for some people the aching muscles can discourage them to continue on. As you continue with your exercise gradually increase the intensity of the exercise to build up your strength and stamina.

When you exercise is not that important however, it is not advisable to work out before you go to bed as this can interrupt a good night sleep. Alternatively, it is not advisable to eat after a meal as the body directs blood flow to the stomach area to help with the digestion of food. By exercising you will divide the blood flow which can cause stomach cramps due to undigested food. The best way is to experiment with the time you do your exercise because a time that works for someone may not work for you.

When you are doing your workouts it is very important that you get in to the routine of doing a warm up before and a cool down after you exercise. By doing this you will decrease your risk of getting a muscle strain or injury. The warm up will help to increase the blood flow to the muscles in order to prepare it for the strenuous activity ahead. The cool down session enables you to slow your body's heart rate down. For example, if you are running hard then you can cool down by doing 3 minutes of gradually slowing down the pace until you stop.

Always seek a doctor's advice if you have a medical condition before doing any form of new exercise.

With over 2 years experience as a freelance writer, Tim Bose writes on topics he is passionate about.

What Is Military Fitness

Military fitness is hard, physical and very disciplined. Its aim is to push people to their physical and mental limit to see what sort of character they are and to see them under pressure. At the end of basic training of military fitness trainees should have the necessary skills to work under extreme pressure and have the fitness to carry out their duties.

Army fitness, royal marine fitness and any other force tend to go down the lines of using their own body weight and lots of circuit training workout routines in the gym or outdoors.
The workout routines usually consist of exercises like - press ups, sit ups, lunges, pull ups and shuttle runs. If you look at some typical workout routines for military fitness you will see a pattern of how they use different exercises to work different areas of the body.
For example -
Arms,Chest,Shoulders they would choose exercises such as - press ups or pull ups as theses work most parts of the body.
Stomach and Core they would use exercises such as - sit ups, crunches, leg raises or hanging leg raises.
Legs they would look at squats, lunges or step ups.
Overall Fitness they would use short shuttle runs to push you even more.
A typical workout routines could look like this -

Arms/Chest/Shoulders - press ups
close arm press
tri dips 10 reps of each exercise
incline press
dips
pull ups

Stomach - sit ups
sit up twist
crunchies 20 reps of each exercise
leg raises
hanging leg raises
cycling twists

Legs - squats
lunges
step ups 20 reps of each exercise
pistol squats
duck walk
squat jumps

In between each exercise do a 50m shuttle runs (25m out 25m back) and do one after the other starting from arms through to legs to you complete a total of 18 exercises. Rest for 2 minutes and do it all again.
If you were crap, which 99.9% of the time you were you would either go on the ropes or you'd be on your knees doing more press ups.
These are great workout routines for losing weight, toning up and great for flexibility. There were guys and girls who were on the border with their weight joining who lost a fair bit of it over the space of 4 weeks and you could see muscle coming through, so why not try some military fitness.

A Military Fitness Workout

Workout routines were great in the forces and great for military fitness. Here is a workout we used to do in the forces while on tour. Its nothing special but it works the whole of your body and burns off lots of fat. Its also a killer at times and you feel it the next day.


So here it is,
Start by warming up for 10 mins, jogging round and shaking out the muscles.

Close Arm Press                      10 reps
Sit Up Twists                          20 reps
Squats                                    30 reps

Wide Arm Press                      15 reps
Sit Ups                                   20 reps
Lunges                                   30 reps (15reps on each leg)

Tri Dips ( on a wall / bench )    20 reps
Crunchies                               20 reps
Step Ups ( on a wall /bench )   30 reps

Press Ups                              15 reps
Leg Raises                             20 reps
Squat jumps                           30 reps

Do this gym free circuit 3 times through rest for 1 min after completing each of the 12 exercises all the way through without stopping, then jog for a 1 min and start again.

After you have done the circuit for the third time rest for 2 minutes and jump into this Abs circuit,

Sit ups
Sit up Twist
Crunchies
Leg raises
Alt Ankle Taps
Inners
Scissors

Do 10 reps of each ab exercise all the way through without stopping, rest for 2 mins and do the ab circuit again. Once you have mastered it you can do it for a third time.

Finished the circuits so time to stretch off and warm down.

This gym free circuit may look easy but it is for people with a moderate fitness level and you only get out of the circuit how much you put in it. So give it a try and let me know what your thoughts are.
Like I said we did it when there was no weights about and to keep ourselves fit.