Conditioning Of The Lower Body

Be sure to include exercises that will serve the purpose of conditioning of the lower body in your workout plan. It is essential that you get on a well rounded fitness plan so that you can target every muscle group and do not experience any type of imbalances from working one group more heavily than the other.

Some good exercises that will target in on conditioning of the lower body include squats, lunges, deadlifts, leg extensions, hamstring curls and calf raises. All should be performed using heavy enough weight so that you feel fully fatigued at the end of your set. After that, you will need to get an appropriate amount of rest between sessions so then your muscles grow back stronger and you are then ready to push them once again. Short-circuiting your rest after a hard session that was designed for conditioning of the lower body is not a good plan because this will just leave you feeling weaker rather than stronger.

You may also want to incorporate some cardiovascular exercise in as part of your routine as well since this will target this area also. Here you have the option of doing very high intensity sprint type of work or sessions that are more moderate paced in nature - such as a 45 minute jog. The advantage to doing the high intensity work is that it will burn a greater amount of body fat and improve your VO2 max more. Since it is a very difficult form of exercise though, you will not be able to perform it for a long duration of time.

On the other hand, the longer, more moderate paced session will help to increase muscular endurance so that you are then able to exercise for a greater amount of time without becoming overly fatigued. This is also a slightly better form of exercise for a beginner to perform, as it won't overly tax their muscles with something they aren't used to.

So regardless of the exact components of your workout, just be sure you are getting in some regular exercise for these muscle groups. Doing so will help you maintain your weight better since they are such large muscles and therefore burn a high number of calories, as well as help to prevent the occurrence of injuries.