Can anyone help me with exercises to tone my legs?

[RaRaZ]

Hey. Sorry, I'm new to this part of the forum.

Background on me: I weigh just over eight stone and am a size 8. I'm very fit and exercise usually 6 days a week: running, swimming, yoga, pilates, gym. In the gym, I do mostly cardio (treadmill, bike, rower, X-trainer, hill-stepper), but have also started doing leg weights on the advice of one of the instructors: hip adductors and abductors and leg press. I'm wanting to tone up my legs (thighs more than anything), and the weights don't seem to be making much of a difference as yet - though it's early days. Can anyone suggest anything? Thanks!

body pump class?

Which muscles are you trying to strengthen? Skating is really good for all the thigh muscles. If it's just your quads then you could try doing some hill training when you go running. Great for glutes too.

Squats, lunges, deadlifts (latter more for bum and back but great).

Lunges- start with standing lunges and get technique perfect (straight back, knees behind toes at all times) - add dumbells to hold when you can do 15 on each leg easily (and up the weights each time that gets easy). You can also do walking lunges to get more of a cardio effect with these.

Squats - same start as with lunges, same rules re back and knees. Add weight, you can hold two dumbells, or one heavier one and do a goblet squat, or hold a bar in front of your shoulders or behind.

Deadlifts most easily done with a bar but can be done with dumbells too.

Harder variations of squats and lunges include split squats, lunges with different angles...eg take front foot to 2 o'clock rather than straight forward etc.

Do a few sets of each of these 3-4 times a week and you should soon see more definition in your legs.

In addition, although it doesn't sound as if you have much fat to lose , if you arent doing intervals already, try doing high intensity intervals on the stepper; put it up as high as you can possibly manage to sustain for one minute, then back down to a few notches below your usual steady state setting to recover. Repeat until you have been on there 10-15 minutes. This should blast any fat you do have more effectively than extended cardio. Do this after the weights.

Sorry, should have said, one minute recovery in intervals.

Also make sure your technique is perfect for deadlifts, preferably get someone to show you and check, or at least check out some vids on YouTube.

Sleep : With your interval training on the stepper suggestion, would the hill stepper be ok for that? There's not a normal stepper at my gym.

I'm sure it would be fine, how quickly does it respond to changes in speed? The problem doing one minute intervals on a treadmill is that it takes So long (relatively) to adjust from fast to steady that it eats into the time IYSWIM. Other machines, like stationary cycle or stepper, or the rowing machine (driven by how fast and strong your movements are), respond faster so work better .

Ahh right. Yeah, I get you. It works by levels so you can change dead fast.

Nothing has changed and toned my leg and bum as dramatically as weighted squats, lunges and deadlifts all with dumbells, supplemented with stepper (leaning forwards to work glutes more) and 15% incline walking on treadmill.

Oh yeah, agree with HIIT suggestion too - it causes the same degree of lower body soreness for me as weights.

Hey Bssh, I just asked you a q on your old heavy lifting thread. How's it going? Well by the sound of it .

Hi Sleep, yes, loving the heavy free weights :) The impact on my physique just in a month or two has been incredible.

Straddle squats work wonder with your inner things, although I've always hated them. They're the ones where you put the bar between your legs, and pick it with one hand in front, and the other behind.