5 Best Leg Workouts At Home (with Youtube Videos)

If LEG DAY is your favorite day of the week, you’re going to love these 5 Leg Workouts At Home (all with full YouTube videos)! Build strong legs – quads, glutes, hamstrings and thighs – using minimal equipment, like a set of dumbbells and resistance band.

Jump to 5 BEST Leg Workouts At Home

No gym, no problem.  

When you think “leg day”, you might think of jumping into a squat rack, but there are several effective leg exercises you can do at home with dumbbells.

How can I do leg day at home?

Enter these 5 leg workouts at home. Effective lower body strength training, using minimal equipment like a set of dumbbells and resistance band. 

We have several lower body workouts, but this post highlights our 5 BEST Leg Workouts At Home!

Ranging from a 10-minute beginner glute activation, to pregnancy-friendly leg workouts and advanced, 45-minute leg workouts. There’s an at home leg workout for all fitness levels in this round up.

How many days a week should I train legs?

• I suggest strength training at least three days a week, with one of those days isolating the legs.
• Research suggests training a muscle group two days per week to maximize muscle growth (Healthline).

Ultimately, it depends on your personal fitness level and fitness goals.

I recommend giving each muscle group at least 24 hours to recover between workouts.

For example, if I did a leg workout on Monday, I would wait until Wednesday (at the earliest) to do another heavy leg workout.

If you want a structured workout plan to follow, try one of my FREE 14 or 30 Day Workout Plans!

What are the best leg exercises?

• Squats
• Deadlifts
• Glute Bridges or Hip Thrusts
• Lunges

These basic leg exercises make an appearance in all 5 of these leg workouts at home.

Leg Workout Basics: Proper Squat Form, Lunge Form and Deadlift Form

How to do a Squat:

1. Start standing with feet hip-distance apart, toes pointing straight ahead or slightly angled out away from the body.
2. Holding one dumbbell in each hand at your sides or shoulders, exhale to engage your core. With your weight in your heels, sit your hips back.
3. Lowering your hips down, parallel with your knees (creating a 90 degree angle with right knee, right hip and left knee, left hip). Keeping weight in your heels, elbows and chest up. This is the bottom of your squat position.
4. Then drive through your heels to return to standing (hips drive forward as you squeeze your glutes).

How to do a Lunge:

1. Start standing with feet hip-width apart. Holding a dumbbell in each hand at your sides, palms facing your body.
2. Step your right leg back into a reverse lunge, lowering your hips until both knees reach 90-degree angles, front thigh parallel to the floor.
3. Then squeeze your left leg glute (front foot), driving your back, right leg forward as you stand up back to the starting position.
4. Repeat this movement on the left side, alternating legs as you step back to lunge.

How to do a Deadlift:

1. Start standing with feet spaced hip-width apart, holding one dumbbell in each hand with your grip just outside your legs (overhand grip).
2. Stand tall with a flat back and neutral spine. Your shoulders should be back and down.
3. With a slight bend in your knees, hinge at your hips (hip flexors). Think of pressing your hips back towards the wall behind you, as you lower the dumbbells down the front of your legs. The dumbbells should remain in contact with your legs for the entire range of motion.
4. Once you’ve reaching the bottom (range of motion looks different for everyone). Drive through your heels, squeezing your glutes and hamstrings to push your hips forward and return to the starting position.

The 5 Best Leg Workouts At Home

If you want to sculpt strong, toned legs, these are the 5 BEST Leg Workouts At Home with weights. And you can find each of these leg workouts on YouTube.

Each leg workout will vary in terms of specific exercises included, but you can count on firing up all the muscles in your lower body, including:

• Quads (front of the leg)
• Hamstrings (back of the leg)
• Adductors (inner thighs)
• Abductors (outer thigh and hips)
• Glutes (booty)

I’ve included a description of each leg workout below so you can choose the one that best fits your fitness level.

Each of these leg workouts includes a warm up, but if want something extra, try this 10 Minute Glute Activation. 

1. 30-Minute Strength Training Leg Day Workout

Do this Leg Workout if: you want a challenging, low impact leg workout. The 3 lunge, squat and deadlift variations are sure to keep you engaged and leave you sore. ALL legs, ALL strength training.

Leg Exercises Included: 

1. Lunges
2. Squats
3. Deadlifts
4. Sumo Squats

Equipment: set of dumbbells (8-20 lbs).

Workout Format: Counted reps. Four circuits, 3 leg exercises per circuit (12 leg exercises total). 10 to 12 reps per leg exercise; repeat each circuit x 2 sets.

Muscles Worked: Glutes, hamstrings, thighs, hips, quads and calf muscles.

Beginner and Pregnancy-Friendly? Yes! I filmed this video during my 2nd trimester, and this has become a popular pregnancy leg workout on Youtube. Note, every body, and pregnancy, is different. I personally dropped my weights several times throughout this workout and performed the leg exercises with just my bodyweight (and added baby weight).

2. 30-Minute Booty Building Workout

Do this Leg Workout if: you want a strength and plyo glute-focused workout. This is a 30 minute lower body HIIT workout with weights (aka booty burnout).

Plyometrics involve an explosive intensity, like jumping, which requires multiple muscle groups to work together. These movements generate POWER, which increases calorie burn and leads to quicker strength gains (International Sports Sciences Association).

6 Best Booty Building Leg Exercises Included: 

1. Single Leg Squat
2. Single Leg Plyo Lunge
3. Chair or Bench Step Up
4. Squat Jump and Lunge Jump
5. Rear Foot Elevated Lunge or Bulgarian Lunge
6. Glute Bridge

Equipment: set of dumbbells (8-20 lbs) and chair or bench.

Workout Format: Reps and timed intervals. 12-16 reps of each strength exercise and 30 second timed intervals of each Plyo exercise.

Muscles Worked: Butt — the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius and gluteus minimus (the lower, upper and side glutes).

Beginner and Pregnancy-Friendly? Yes, with modifications. Take the low impact modifications offered in place of the Plyo exercises.

3. The 8 Best Resistance Band Exercises for Legs (30 Minute Resistance Band Leg Workout)

Do this Leg Workout if: you want to activate and “turn on” the glutes (especially if you tend to be more quad dominant). This is a 30 minute lower body HIIT workout with resistance bands (affiliate).

A great cross training leg workout for runners that targets the glutes, hips and stabilizing lower body muscles. Also great for strengthening your knees as you train in all three planes of motion.

8 Best Resistance Band Exercises for Legs Included: 

1. Staggered Squat + Banded Rear Leg Lift
2. Banded Squat Jump
3. Resistance Band Lateral Walks
4. Wide + Narrow Squat Jumps
5. Resistance Band Leg Extensions
6. 2 Pulse Squat + Quarter Turn
7. Banded Glute Bridge
8. Glute Bridge Resistance Band Open Pulses

Equipment: mini loop resistance band (affiliate) (I likes these resistance bands, get a discount with codeL NML).

Workout Format: Reps and timed intervals. 12 reps of each strength exercise and 30 second timed intervals of each Plyo or power resistance band exercise.

Muscles Worked: Glutes, hamstrings, quads, hips and calf muscles.

Beginner and Pregnancy-Friendly? Yes, with modifications. Take the low impact modifications offered in place of the Plyo exercises.

4. 30-Minute Leg Workout At Home

Do this Leg Workout if: you want a complete lower body burnout, super-setting two strength exercises with one power exercise. The goal is to lift heavy weights and focus on good form.

Leg Exercises Included: 

1. Front Rack Squat
2. Staggered Deadlift
3. Goblet Squat
4. Lunges
5. Lateral Squats
6. Dumbbell Swing
7. Glute Bridges

Equipment: set of dumbbells (8-20 lbs) and optional mini loop resistance band (affiliate) (I likes these resistance bands, get a discount with codeL NML).

Workout Format: Reps and timed intervals. 8-16 reps of each strength exercise and 30 second timed intervals of each power exercise.

Muscles Worked: Glutes, hamstrings, quads, hips, thighs and calf muscles.

Beginner and Pregnancy-Friendly? Yes, with modifications. Take the low impact modifications offered in place of the power exercises.

5. 45-Minute Drop Set Dumbbell Leg Workout

Do this Leg Workout if: you want an intense leg day workout that challenges you to life heavy weights. This lower body strength workout leaves me sore every time I do it (I personally think it’s the hardest on the list, but a favorite of mine).

Leg Exercises Included: 

1. Goblet Squat
2. Calf Raises
3. Lateral Lunges
4. Single Leg Pistol Squat
5. Staggered Deadlift
6. Deadlift + Clean Squat
7. Split Squat
8. Sumo Squats

Equipment: set of dumbbells (8-30 lbs) and optional mini loop resistance band (affiliate) (I likes these resistance bands, get a discount with codeL NML).

Workout Format: Rep-Drop. 14 reps on the first set of each exercise, 12 reps on the second set, and 10 reps on the third set.

Muscles Worked: Legs, hamstrings, glutes, thighs, quads, hips and calf muscles.

Beginner and Pregnancy-Friendly? This is an advanced leg workout requiring lots of core engagement to perform each move safely. You can take it with modifications, lighter weights, or choose one of the other leg workouts.

Glute Activation — the best way to grow your glutes.

If you’re focusing on building the muscles in your booty, try starting your workout with one of these glute activation workouts. You also can use these quick leg workouts as a “burnout” at the end of your leg workout to push your lower body muscles to fatigue.

• 10-Minute Glute Activation with Mini Band
• 8-Minute Booty Workout At Home (no squats, no lunges and no jumping in this leg workout which makes it great for bad knees)

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