My Favorite Lower Body Exercise

I don’t know why, but, throughout my career, 95% of my clients have been female. Which is why I decided to develop a program that caters to fat loss for women. (Insert shameless plug for BYE BYE BABYFAT BOOT CAMPS here. LOL)

With that being said, I noticed that the majority of women have approached me with a lot of questions regarding “What exercises are best for my butt and legs?” One of the most common areas of concerns is the lower body, specifically the glutes, hamstrings and quadriceps. Today I’m going to share my personal favorite lower body exercise and all of its awesome variations. It’s called the Bulgarian Split Squat (a.k.a. Rear-Foot Elevated Lunge Variation). Trust me, if you master this exercise, your legs will get stronger and tighter in no time! Anyone could do it, both males and females.

Before we get into this, one thing I definitely don’t want to do is feed into the idea of individual body part training and spot reduction on certain areas of the body. I am a true believer in total body training, meaning that we train the upper body, lower body, and core during every single workout. By training the whole body at once we maximally stimulate lean muscle gain and metabolism and promote total body fat burning in order to effectively eliminate the body fat that is hiding those areas that people are having trouble seeing; yep the stubborn fat areas that prevent a good body from becoming a great body. Plus, a diet high in lean protein, fiber, and green veggies and low in unnatural fats and refined sugars and starches is of course a pre-requisite if you want to see your muscles pop in a good way. It is also important to know that you lose fat in a genetically predetermined way. You can do all the crunches you want but without total body training. proper eating habits, and enough time to get to those stubborn fat areas you will never get rid of your gut, jiggly arms, or the junk in the trunk ;)

Most of the time, my favorite leg exercises are any sort of lunge variation because I prefer single leg exercises compared to double leg exercises for a lot of reasons. For people with back issues, single leg exercises allow them to safely perform lower body exercises without putting their lower lumbar spine in jeopardy of hyper flexion or excessive rounding that can cause back spasms in the short run and herniated discs in the long run. Furthermore, I feel there’s often such a strength and/or flexibility imbalance between one leg and the other for most people that it’s critical to address one leg at a time to really shore up the weak links from the start.

My favorite lunge variation is the Bulgarian Split Squat. So basically we’re going to elevate the back foot on a chair, bench, box, or any other sturdy foot support, usually about 12-18 inches high. You’ll put your front leg well in front of you in order to make sure that your front knee and ankle are lined up. In general, I tell people to exaggerate how far you put your front leg forward so that the front knee is almost slightly behind the ankle as this really helps reduce sheer force on the knees. Initiate the exercise by loading the front heel and dropping your hips as low as you can in a pain-free range of motion while staying really tall up top with a proud chest and shoulders down and back. Finish the rep by explosively driving through your front heel to return to the top of the movement. You can start with body weight only in search of front thigh parallel to the floor or lower depth and then progress by adding speed of movement or by adding dumbbells. You can even incorporate some very cool combination movements with this lower body exercise like adding a curl to press at the top of the movement or even by raising dumbbells overhead to really challenge your core and single-leg balance and stability.

I have yet to find an exercise that hits the legs as hard as this one does. Also, what’s great about it is that it provides a very good stretch for the hip flexor of your back leg, an area that is often very tight, especially for guys. Any exercise that allows you to simultaneously stretch and strengthen your body is a real keeper. Don’t waste another moment with the useless adductor machine and try this AMAZING lower body exercise to tighten up your buns and thighs!