9 Women’s Calisthenics At Home Workouts For Beautiful Legs

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The best way to shape your lower body at home, no equipment required. Try a women’s calisthenics workout for legs to get toned at home.

The word calisthenics makes me think of old-school exercise classes. Ones with ladies in jumpsuits doing a lot of hopping around, stretching, and odd movements that we may giggle at today.

Many of us have upgraded to a more athletic style training like HIIT, spinning, or throwing dumbbells around our nearest box gym (*cough cough* Crossfit, anyone?). Does that mean calisthenics are no longer an effective way to train?

Absolutely not. In fact, calisthenics are a staple to my training routine. I love calisthenics for their variety, ability to modify or advance based on fitness level, and the fact that I can do them at home!

Why calisthenics workouts are great for women

The best thing about calisthenics is that they require no equipment. A convenient form of exercise for those of us that are working out at home since you don’t need a lot of room to do the movements.

Simply put, calisthenics are bodyweight exercises. Things like squats, glute bridges, lunges, jumping jacks, speed skaters, etc.

Any compound exercise that is multi-joint is considered a calisthenics exercise. They can be used to improve cardio or increase strength.

Another benefit is that calisthenics exercises are appropriate for every stage of motherhood.

Whether you’re prenatal, postpartum, getting back into shape, or the fittest you’ve ever been! Calisthenics workouts can be modified or advanced to accomodate every fitness level.

What is the best exercise to slim and tone legs?

To get that lean, toned, shaped, and sculpted look, you need to reduce adipose tissue (lose body fat) and increase muscle mass.

Muscle tone (a.k.a. muscle tension) comes from building strength and muscle size. Just having a low body fat percentage will not equate to being toned. There must be significant muscle mass to provide the curve and definition of a toned physique.

Improving strength and building muscle while maintaining less body fat will help you to look slim and toned.

By incorporating strength calisthenics exercises with cardio calisthenics exercises, you can increase the intensity using an interval style workout (think HIIT). Therefore, building muscle and burning high amounts of calories in one workout. Perfect for the busy moms!

Because calisthenics workouts can be used to incorporate cardio for fat loss and strength training for muscle building, they are an effective method for a woman to tone her legs fast.

Check out my post The Most Important 3 Lower Body Exercises you need to incorporate into your at home workouts for a toned lower body. These three moves are essential to women’s calisthenics workout for legs.

Can you build your legs with calisthenics?

In order to build muscle, the neuromuscular system needs to experience an overload of stress it is not used to experiencing.

The muscle doesn’t know what is causing the stress, whether bodyweight, a dumbbell, or a resistance band. Stress is stress.

Calisthenics can create overload to build leg strength by manipulating the intensity, time under tension, and volume within the workout.

Volume

Increasing volume in a women’s calisthenics workout for legs is the simplest way to bulk up skinny legs.

Most bodyweight exercises allow for a higher rep range due to their lower intensity. Therefore, we can increase the reps and/or sets we are doing within the workout to cause overload.

We can also do this with back-to-back sets of multiple exercises that use the same primary muscles.

Intensity

To increase the intensity of a calisthenics exercise, we have to adjust the force output. For the lower body, this could be done by using plyometrics (or jumping moves) like squat jumps.

We could also do this be shifting our bodyweight to be carried by only one side of the body, distributing more weight over fewer muscles. Like a single leg glute bridge. This would call for a greater force output without adding outside weight.

Time Under Tension

We can also increase time under tension. You can do that by moving through a shorter range of motion such as a squat pulse.

You could also use a form of tempo training such as holding a position or slowing down the exercise.

How many times a week should a woman train legs?

To build muscle, a woman should train legs in 2 to 3 separate strength sessions per week. It can take 8-12 weeks to see significant increase in muscle tone even with this amount of training.

However, by increasing total load of training, you can see results and progress even faster, within reason. You can’t rush the biological process and don’t want to increase risk of injury or overtraining which can hinder results.

To safely increase load, try mixing up the intenisty, target muscle groups, volume, and rest time of each leg day session. This could be done with one HIIT workout focused on quads, one strength workout focused on glutes, and one cardio workout that uses the entire lower body.

Maintain variety to keep your fitness routine fun and effective!

Women’s Calisthenics Workout for Legs

I have made a list of 9 different lower body focused calisthenics workouts designed for women. Each workout is unique in programming, exercise selection, work to rest time, and intensity.

My workouts will help you shape your lower body in all the right places while working to maintain a healthy and supported physique for motherhood.

They are perfect for busy moms like you. We will use functional exercises that support your day-to-day movement patterns that can be done in 30 minutes or less.

Each workout is designed to be effective and efficient so you can make the most of your workout without wasting time.

For Strength Building

My Squat Challenge Workout is a great quad and booty burner that can be done in about 20 minutes! All squats, all sweat.

My 20 Minute Leg & Glute At Home Workout cycles through high repetition and a lot of pulses to help sculpt and tone your lower body.

For High Intensity Training

For a more athletic approach, any of these HIIT style workouts! My High-Impact Cardio HIIT Workout and Explosive Plyometric Workout will be intense workouts designed for more intermediate to advanced levels that will help you increase power. Or you can try my Speed & Agility At Home Workout for a lower impact workout that will make you feel like an athlete training for the big day.

For Strength and Cardio

For the days you want to get strength AND cardio done within one, high-calorie burning session, try my Calisthenics Leg & Glute Workout or my Lower Body Endurance No Equipment Workout. Both will have your lungs and muscles burning for an effective home workout.

For Limited Time

When those nonstop days come around that you just don’t have the time, squeeze in a quick 10-Minute session with my Glute Bridge Workout or my Leg Day at Home Workout. Be sure to get warmed up before jumping in and make the most of the little time you have, no excuses!

Love calisthenics? Download my FREE 4-week Calisthenics Workout Plan to improve full body strength and cardio!

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