10-Minute Lower Body Exercise for Beginners

Hi, my name is Leah Zahner. I am here with a workout at GHU TV that I think you're all gonna love, I hope you do. It's lower body which everybody wants. No squats, no lunges, none of those things that really bother knees or joint issues. So we're gonna activate your glutes, we're gonna tighten up your hamstrings and we're gonna get you moving. So I'm gonna start, I've just got my water. I don't have any equipment with me at all besides my timer. I'm gonna make sure that we're moving through these movements but if you feel at home or you wanna add some weight to it, pick up a dumbbell, take up two. It's totally under your control but I wanna show you what can be done with absolutely no weight in your hands. No squats, no lunges and still a really great burn for your lower body. So without further ado, I'm gonna start my timer and I'm gonna find a wall. So that's the first thing that you're gonna need. You're gonna activate your glutes by backing up against the wall. Take a light grip with your fingertips if you need to and just press your left heel back. So as immediately when you do that, you gonna feel tension down the back of your left leg. So you're just gonna press, an active press through your heel, back behind you without letting your body tip over. We're gonna do this for about 30 seconds. And as you press, you wanna feel a tight squeeze right down the backside in your glute, a little bit down into your hamstring and you're gonna feel your standing legs start to fire up a little bit as well. So while you're here make sure you don't lock out your standing knee. Keep on pushing, keep on squeezing. You got two, one, switch sides, anchor down, press your other heel back and start to press. So it doesn't look like much but I gotta tell you, I can already feel that burn start in my glutes, start traveling down into my hamstrings. This is gonna be partially glute activation, also, a little bit part of our warmup. So you wanna be pressing so hard, you might actually start to feel a little vibration or a little shape start in your glute. You're not going to quite go to muscle fatigue, but you're going to feel how tight you're squeezing your muscle. And this is a great way to activate your glutes. We're not doing a single squat here. All right, we've got about 10 more seconds here pressing on this second side. And then we're going to give ourselves a knee hug. So you're going to need to step away from the wall in three, two, one, take two big steps away. Shake out your arms just a little bit. And you're just going to alternate hugs of your knees. You're going to bring a little bit of a stretch into the work you just did to the same muscles as flutes that you activated. Now, you're just going to get a dynamic range of motion through your hips. So this would be the motion that if you were doing squats you would be getting this same range of motion through your hip joints. But you're a little bit more in control here. If it's nice and low, that's where you're living. If it's a little bit higher, give yourself a tight squeeze. At the top. Feel your balance. We're going to be moving into calf raises next. Two more. One and two, set your feet down. Now that wall is back there for you. If you need it for balance, go to it at any time. Otherwise you're just going to plant your feet right underneath your shoulders and hips. So make sure you don't get too wide here. Squeeze it on in. And once you're planted you're just lifting your heels into the air. No, this is really the first opportunity where if you're feeling like you want a little extra challenge. You can grab dumbbells in each hand, hold them out Your sides. You can also bring, waits for your arms up overhead. It's going to challenge your balance. Get your body moving with a little bit more intensity but you're really focusing on strengthening the muscles in your calves. We're going to do about 10 more of these and then we're going to do a little quick stretch for the calves as well. Eight, seven, little higher, six all the way up to tippy toes. Five, four. This is it. Three. Keep your balance. You can do it two. Last one. Take just a quick step back, left foot back softening your front knee, press your back heel down. Gonna give you a quick little stretch to the calf. Take a soft bend in your back knee. Just allow that stretch to travel down into your Achilles, step forward, back, switch sides. So we are gonna work. And do a little bit of a stretch, soft bend in your knees, adding the work down into your Achilles into your tendon, and then step back together. Now we're going into side leg lifts. This is where you're going to need the balance on your standing leg and a nice tight engagement down the side of your working leg. So we're going to start with the left leg working, the right leg planted on the floor to just the slightest hinge foward. So you have your balance and you're going to lift right out to the side. Now this is going to challenge you to work without momentum. We're going to do 10 on each side. So you're going to find that lift. And you're going to think about pushing the outside edge of your leg up towards your ceiling without kicking. Yeah, so I did one with a kick. You're going to continue to lift. Do you have one more to go. Big up and down, switch sides, just shift your weight. 10 right here, lift and lower. Now I'm using my hands on my hips. You can use your hands in front of you. You can bring them out to the side. If you keep them right down to the ground in front of you if you need to, whatever you choose, you're going for that balance, you don't have to use any momentum. It's just a tight squeeze. All those abductor muscles three, two, one. We're going to do 10 more each side. We're going to add a little option. You can lift, press back and set it down. Lift, press, set it down. As you press back. You're going to think about that wall that was behind you when you started and you're pressing an imaginary wall back behind you. Now, if that press adds a little too much challenge to your balance, take it out. Just do the lift. We're down to four more. Woo, I can feel it on fire. Even my standing leg is working. I hope you're balancing hope. You're feeling it. Let's do one more and switch sides. Shift your weight. Start to lift. Add the press back, lift up, press back. No notice my toes. They never rotate open towards the ceiling. Even though I'm lifting to the side I'm never rotating my hip open. I want to maintain this parallel position. Everything is pointed forward. We're into the second half here. Four more. Use your balance. Use the wall. If you need it, you can always take a hand to a wall, wall to a chair, whatever you feel to get you through two more. Last two here it is. The last one. We're going to take it out. Release the fingers, release the feet because you're going to need your balance. We're going to a single leg balance. 30 seconds on each side. This is going to be a lot of work in the calves. A lot of work on those abductors that we just worked. They're going to still sting a little bit. You're gonna plant your right foot. Take your hands to your hips. Now you can touch your toe to your ankle. You can touch your toe to your knee. You can let your leg hang out in front of you. But what you want to do is spread out your toes on your standing leg. Keep your core. Whew, hold in. Nice and tight. You don't want to lose the contraction in your torso. Your hips are going to stay even and your foot on the floor is going to anchor down. Now am not locking out my standing knee but I'm keeping it a little bit soft, a micro bend that's going to allow me to really anchor down. And then I'm imagining someone pulling my spine up towards the ceiling. At about 10 more seconds here on this side then we're going to switch right to the second side, five, four, three, two, all the way. One switch sides. Put your foot choose whatever leg position works best for you. Toe to ankle toe to knee. Let the foot float go right back into spreading your toes out in your shoe. Or if you're working barefoot, actually spread all of your toes on the floor and grip with them, right? You ever noticed when we grip things with our hands we use our fingers, not just our palms. Do the same thing with your toes. They're available for you. Micro bend in your knee, have John and tight deep breath in, lift your posture. You're down into your final 10 seconds. All ready. Five, four, three push all the way two one, set your feet down. Give it a nice little tight shake out. We're going to go into what are called good mornings. This is another opportunity for a weight. If you like, if you're using a Dumbbell it's going to go right behind your head. If not, with me you're going to just take your hands to your head. Elbows wide and your feet are going to stay at that hip width, distance micro bend in your knees. And then you're going to send your tailbone back. You're going to hinge forward all the way as low as you can get with a flat back. And then you're going to stand up by squeezing your glutes. So rather than arch your back ever you're going to squeeze your glutes to lift up. So go ahead and join me. We're going to do 12 reps of this really slow think a controlled downward movement. Squeeze your glutes and lift up high. Everything in your spinal column should stay in one long line. So if you feel your shoulders hunch if you feel your shoulders arch back, thinking about making your movement just a little bit smaller you should focus on the squeeze of your glutes stretch your hamstrings on the way down squeeze them on the way up. We've got four more, maybe at an exhale on the way up as well. If you've done any of my workouts, you know I love my breathing. Inhale down, exhale up. You got one more slow, lower squeeze, your glutes lift. Those are your good mornings. That's our last standing exercise. If you'd like to add a mat, you can pull one out. Otherwise just hop right down to the floor. We're going to do some glute bridges. So you're going to set yourself up with your arms by your side, your feet planted just about that hip width distance that we've already been working with. And you're going to put your abs out turn them on is what I say. So you're going to draw your navel in squeeze your core tight. And with that all in position, you're going to press your heels down and squeeze your glutes to lift up. So we're going to be here for 15 reps, little bit longer a little bit more repetition here, because I really want you to feel that engagement with your glutes, right? Every time you squeeze, that's a large muscle group. You're lifting your body. Now, as we get in we're almost at the halfway point, this is seven. This is your halfway eight. What I noticed in a lot of people is the core starts to go as you focus just on the glutes. So make sure that you're still squeezing tight in your abs. It's almost as though your low back won't roll to the floor. It's going to just lower towards the floor. So instead of rolling your pelvis up you're just squeezing your glutes and your entire core is lifting up towards the ceiling or down to our last five, four, three almost there squeeze even tighter. Two last one, squeeze hold at the top and lower down. We're gonna stay on the floor and just roll over to all fours. So here's where if your knees give you a little trouble, kneeling place a towel underneath or come up and place your hands on a table or a chair. So you can still fold forward with a flat back but you won't be kneeling. If you're on the floor we're going to do some hamstring curls right here in this table top position. So all of the core muscles that you already did, squeeze them in tight. Send your leg closest to me back. Pull your heel into your seat and extend, in extend, in extend. We got five, four, three, two, last one extend your leg. Switch sides, flex your foot heel in. It's curl and curl tight squeeze in the hamstring hips point down at the floor. Five more here's five, four, three, two and one. You did it. Bring your knees down. Seat goes all the way back. Like you're going to have a seat on your heels but press your arms forward. Take a nice deep breath in, exhale down. Roll yourself up once you're kneeling roll your shoulders back. Take a peek forward. You did it. 10 minutes done, not a single squat. You really killed it. See you soon at GHU TV.