A Dumbbell Leg Workout That’ll Goal Your Quads, Hamstrings, and Glutes

Pumping out countless squats isn’t the one—or best—option to challenge your lower body. That’s why a solid dumbbell leg workout will include exercises that hit all the most important compound movement patterns.

“The fundamental thing is, you wish a hip hinge, a squatting pattern, a hip bridge pattern, and hip abduction,” ACE-certified personal trainer Sivan Fagan, founding father of Strong With Sivan, tells SELF.

Though this might sound complicated, you’re probably actually pretty familiar already with examples of those motions. A hip hinge is a vertical movement where you bend your knees barely, flex at your hips, and send your butt backward (like in a dumbbell Romanian deadlift or a barbell good morning). A squatting pattern involves flexing on the hips and the knees as you lower your butt downward, as for those who were sitting in a chair (like in a goblet squat or a lunge). With a hip bridge, you extend your hips from a horizontal position (like a hip thrust or glute bridge), while with hip abduction, you progress your leg laterally away from the center of your body (like with a side lunge or side-lying leg raise).

By incorporating these functional movement patterns into your leg workout, you’ll find yourself difficult muscles within the front of your lower body, like your quads, and at the back of your body, like your glutes and hamstrings. You’ll also goal the small muscles that make up your side butt—a crucial area for guarding against injury that’s often neglected in strength training. Put all of this together, and also you’ll get a comprehensive lower-body routine that may enable you to construct balanced strength.

Within the leg workout Fagan created for SELF below, getting stronger in all those areas goes to be the secret. And in doing so, you might not have to get as sweaty as you would possibly think—slowing down and really honing in on the movements goes to be more necessary than speed here. Remember, a strength workout doesn’t have to change into a cardio session!

“When you’re specializing in speed or doing as many reps as possible in a certain quantity of time and only taking just a little little bit of time to rest between sets, you’re not going to give you the chance to lift as much weight, which is vital to constructing strength,” Fagan says. “A workout that focuses on getting you as sweaty as possible or as fatigued as possible isn’t equal to an efficient workout.”

That’s why on this dumbbell leg workout, you’re going to take the time for ample rest—one to 2 minutes—between either straight sets (where you are taking a breather after your reps) or supersets (once you do two exercises back to back). This can give your muscles the recovery they should give you the chance to finish the identical variety of reps during your next set. Over time, you’ll likely notice you’re in a position to lift more weight or do more reps with the identical weight. That’s progressive overload, and it’s vital to getting stronger.