What Are the Benefits of Leg Workout? 12 Common Benefits (2024)

FAQs

What are the benefits of leg? ›

Strong leg muscles keep your body balanced, which isn't possible if you focus solely on your upper body. Working your glutes, quads, and hamstrings with exercises such as deadlifts, squats, and lunges helps to maximize and boost athletic performance.

Exercising the legs makes you speedier on the track and speeds up your metabolism. To summarize, the leg exercises benefits are: Maintains good body symmetry. Prevents osteoporosis and maintains good bone health.

"They're home to some of the body's largest muscles, and building healthy legs can improve one's performance, reduce injury, and increase endurance."

You have many different muscles in your upper and lower leg. Together, these muscles help you walk, run, jump, stand on your toes and flex your feet (lift your toes up toward your knee). Your leg muscles work with your bones, tendons and ligaments to stabilize your body, support your weight and help you move.

Whether you love it, hate it, or simply endure it, leg day is important to embrace. Including lower body-focused exercises into your periodized training plan can elevate your strength gains, boost your muscle growth, and crank up your calorie burn, helping you reach your goals faster.

For many people, leg day is the hardest and most grueling workout of the week. This is because your legs are stronger than your arms, so you can typically lift much more weight with your lower body than you can with your upper body. When we hear “leg day,” many of our minds immediately go to squatting.

Regular physical activity is proven to help prevent and manage noncommunicable diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and several cancers. It also helps prevent hypertension, maintain healthy body weight and can improve mental health, quality of life and well-being.

Why is exercise good for your brain? ›

Increased neuroplasticity may be quite important. Studies have shown that at the time of crisis, cardiovascular exercise gives the brain a protective advantage by decreasing its vulnerability to vascular insults and protecting the blood brain barrier from oxidative stress (9,10).

Generally, it's recommended to train your legs three times a week, with each workout lasting 15 to 20 minutes and targeting different parts of the legs in each routine. For instance, a good plan would be to work on calves one day, thighs the next and then hips during the final session.

If it's muffin tops or belly fat you're trying to shed, yes, leg exercises will help you to achieve flatter abs. However, this is part of the bigger picture. To specifically lose weight from your belly and achieve a six-pack you need to perform regular cardio exercise, a healthy diet and routine abs exercises.

Having big thighs can also protect you against degenerative joint disease, which increases sensitivity to cold. Research reveals that strong thigh muscles lower the risk of developing in women. So, if you've been avoiding squats and leg extensions for fear of making your lower half beefier, stop holding back.