Legs

Here I go again: Thinking about working out. This time it's about your legs. Your legs should be much stronger than your arms. There are many ways to workout your legs, but not a ton if you don't have a gym. A few things you could do in the gym but not in your average house: heavy weight squats, leg press, leg extensions, leg curls, and dead-lifts. There are a few more that I don't know the name of, but most of them work on stabilizing muscles.

Now, if you're taking advice from me to workout, you're probably not going to a gym. Even if you were going to a gym, usually there is someone or something that can help you with their workout machines. So I'm just going to write about workouts you can do at home.

The wall sit. It's quite easy actually. Anyone should be able to do it. To do a wall sit, find a wall (one you don't mind getting a little sweaty), then "sit down" so that your back is on the wall and your legs are bent 90 degrees at the knees. Make sure your heels are under your knees, no further back than that, or you could hurt your knees and not get a very good workout. Now, make sure you have good posture, this will make your workout better, and it's better for your back. All you have to do now is hold that position for as long as you can. The time should be relatively short, until you get stronger. Once you are stronger, this could get pretty boring very fast. After all, sitting doing nothing for 3-10 minutes isn't that exciting. So here are couple things you could do to make that that time shorter: add weight. Grab some dumbbells and put them on your lap (evenly spaced out) or just hold them. Another thing to do is one leg wall sits. I like these ones because you don't need to do anything weights. To start this one do a wall sit, then straighten one leg while keeping your thighs parallel to one another. Hold that for 10 seconds, then switch legs. Repeat until failure.

Lunges are another workout you can do that's pretty easy. So it will require high repetition. To start get in a standing position and then 'lunge' forward with one leg. When your leg you lunged forward lands, both your knees should be at a 90 degree angle. Your back leg's shin should be facing the floor, while your front leg's hamstring (back of your upper leg) should be facing the floor. Once you're in that position, 'pop' back up. Now repeat, but while switching legs. Your can add weight to this by grabbing dumbbells, but make sure you keep good posture!

Now for the calf raiser! I love this one because it's funny to try and walk after doing tons of these! To do a calf raiser find a stair case (wear shoes if you're worried about slipping), put a little more than your toes on the stairs. You should be facing up the stairs. Now lift your body up until you calf is fully flexed. Then let yourself down so that your heels are even (or slightly below) the balls or your feet. Repeat. A lot of times. Try and go past the burn. Warning: if you go past the burn, you may not be able to walk normally for a few days without calf pain. You will be sore. Eat protein and bananas to help recover form this. Soreness isn't all that bad, so going past the burn isn't a bad idea. It also builds more muscle. If you can do over 50-100, then you could add weight, or do one leg calf raisers.

Have you ever heard of shin splints? You probably have. Your friend or maybe even you had them once. They kind of feel like a bunch of knives being stabbed into your shin and maybe your calf. That hurts. To help prevent shin splints you can do the counter workout for calf raisers which is 'butt and blades' as my coach called it. Find a wall and put your 'butt' and 'blades' (shoulder blades) against the wall. Then put your heel against the wall, and the heel of your other foot at the toes of your foot on the wall. Now bring the foot with the heel to the wall even with your other foot. Once you have that position, raise the balls of your feet up as high as you can, hold for a second, and then relax, letting your foot down. Repeat this 10-20 times. Don't over do (doing it more than 20 times could be over doing it), or you could cause shin splints instead of preventing them.

Running and plyometrics. These both are great workouts, but I'm going to save them for another post because I could write a ton about both. Even if I wrote a ton about running, you still might not get much out of it. So that's more something I'd have to actually help you with in person. I will still write about it, but it may not help you with your running.