Resistance Band Leg Workout

We all know someone who is a serial leg-day-skipper. They put it off until the end of the week, but when the end of the week comes, they’d rather get a chest pump before the weekend festivities.

But leg day is one of the most important workouts of the week. Not only for aesthetic reasons; strong, well-developed legs improve your total body strength and ability to efficiently generate force and power. In this article we’re going to teach you how to increase the intensity of your leg workouts at home or the gym by using resistance bands. We will also give you two versions of a resistance band leg workout to follow.

You may have preconceived notions about resistance bands – do they work? Are resistance bands only for women? But in this article we’re going to inspire you to buy resistance bands and take your leg workouts to the next level.

Don’t Skip Leg Day

According to a fitness study conducted by Skulpt, the legs are the least trained and most commonly skipped body part. According to Mel Magazine, “most men don’t work out their legs at all.” But why?

Many men skip leg day because they’re harder to train mechanically. The legs consist of larger muscles, and require compound exercises to grow them efficiently. Unlike isolated muscles like the triceps or biceps, the legs make up at least half of your body. So comparing the effort it takes to do bicep curls vs. a barbell squat is unmatched. A heavy leg day requires a lot of energy, effort, and recovery – and for this reason, it can be unappealing.

Plus, another key reason is that a big chest, arms, and back are more recognizable to others. So if you’re training for aesthetics, it can be tempting to just focus on building your upper body. But you shouldn’t.

Benefits of Building Strong Muscular Legs

1. Faster muscle growth

When you train your entire body evenly, the natural release of growth hormone and testosterone increases because more muscles trained means more repair and recovery required. It puts you in a preferential anabolic (muscle building) environment which means more gains, quicker.

2. Accelerate fat loss

The more muscle mass you have, the faster your metabolism is, so the faster you burn fat. While you may feel you’re killing yourself during your back-and-bis workout – you burn significantly more calories during heavy leg workouts.

To generate force in this much of your body requires energy, and a lots of it. Increased energy expenditure during training = fat mobilization = accelerated fat loss. So if you want to lose fat and build muscle, train legs.

3. A well-developed physique

If you’re looking for a developed, muscular and aesthetically even physique, then you need to train legs. It separates the gym bros from the legit lifters.

4. Strong legs = strong lifts

Your legs and core generate force and power during lifts. If your upper body is well-developed but your legs are weak, you will be diminishing your ability to lift heavy weights during compound lifts; even if it’s not a lower body exercise.

5. Prevent against injury

Strength training reinforces the muscles, ligaments, tendons and joints to prevent injury. Interestingly, weak legs are correlated with injuries. According to the American Council on Exercise, if you want to prevent a tear in your ACL, regularly performing squats and lunges is the best prevention plan.

Muscles of the Lower Body

The Glute: The glute muscles are one of the least trained muscles in the gym. They have gained some popularity because of ladies posting their workouts on social media. But glute training is for both men and women.

Training the glute muscles should be a priority for almost everyone. The reason being is that we are a society who predominately sits, causing the glutes to relax, lacking consistent muscle activation.

Quadriceps: The average individual who lives a mostly sedentary lifestyle will be quad dominant. But dominant does not mean that the quads are strong. It means that the glute and hamstring muscles are so weak that the quads appear to be the superior muscle.

Even as the superior lower body muscle, when they are not trained they will be weak. Having strong quad muscles will help to maintain knee strength, keeping the lower body in a stable position anytime we kneed to bend the knee and straighten it back up.

Hamstrings: Another forgotten about muscle group the hamstrings are also weak from so much sitting. This muscle is highly susceptible to injury when it is weak, so training it regularly can keep you active.

Calves & Tibialis: There is a lot of isometric contraction in the calves and Tibialis muscles that comes with sitting frequently. To build the calves and keep them healthy we need them to move through a full range of motion. This means you should spend some time directly isolating these muscles.

The hamstrings should be trained in two fundamental ways. We train them by lengthening in a stretched position and contract like with the feet coming near the butt. This resistance band leg workout will provide you with exercises for both.

Why Should You Use Resistance Bands In a Workout?

The way to build muscle is to train against resistance. Resistance can be your body weight or external resistance from free weights or resistance bands. Resistance bands, while seemingly light and non-intimidating, can provide up to 13 pounds of resistance. While 13 pounds may not sound like a lot to you if you’re squatting PRs, resistance bands provide a different type of resistance – the reason they are so vital for your leg workout.

Resistance bands provide resistance throughout the range of motion, rather than with free weights, that only provides resistance against gravity. With increased resistance through the range of motion we are able to better train the strength curve which increases muscle fiber activation. As an example, let’s look at the difference between resistance bands squats vs. regular squats.

While squatting with a barbell, resistance happens during the eccentric phase (coming upwards), whereas during the concentric phase (the lowering), you are working with gravity. When you use a resistance band during a squat above your knees, it activates your legs throughout the entire range of motion as they are working against the band trying to draw them inwards.

A 2019 study found that resistance bands increase mechanical tension as they stretch. So as you lower into a squat, the resistance band stretches and forces your muscles to contract, resulting in better muscle activation.

Important: Train Legs In and Out

We cannot train all the leg muscles with just a couple exercises. To train them optimally for we need to target the inner thigh and outer thigh, which means we need to include exercises for adductor and abductor muscles.

It might seem like it is OK to skip these side to side lower body exercises, but you shouldn’t. Moving laterally requires different muscles to activate, making it a more complete workout.

Banded Resistance Training Exercises for Legs

Before we get into the workout plan, here are some of the best exercises for legs with a resistance band:

• Banded squat
• Leg extension with band
• Banded leg press
• Hip abductor resistance band
• Banded Bulgarian split squat
• Banded hip thrusts
• Hamstring curls with resistance band
• Banded straight leg deadlifts
• Banded Glute Bridge
• Lateral band walk

Each resistance band exercise listed above will require a learning curve. So give yourself the time to learn each leg exercise so that there is not a struggle when you performing the workout.

Now, let’s see how you can use these band exercises to target the leg muscles.

RESISTANCE BAND LEG WORKOUT #1

Banded hip abductor: 3 sets x 25 repetitions

• Exactly the same exercise as regular hip abduction but with a resistance band rather than a machine

Banded Hip Thrusts: 3 sets x 20 repetitions

• Place the band around your waist near the hips
• Secure the weight to the ground with two heavy dumbbells
• Raise the hips up while squeezing the glutes
• Slowly lower the hips to the starting position

Banded leg press: 3 sets x 25 reps

• Lay flat on your back with the resistance band around your feet and knees bent
• Push heels outwards until legs are straight
• You can play round with feet positioning to target different areas of the legs – the narrower, the more quad activation, the wider – more glutes

Lying banded hamstring curls: 3 sets x 15 reps

• Lay on your stomach with one foot in between a resistance band that is tied to something behind you
• Flex foot and move towards body, contracting the hamstring
• Perform the movement slowly to ensure the band stays in the same position and doesn’t slide down the leg.

Resistance band squats: 3 sets x 25 reps

• Start in a normal squat position with the resistance band across your shoulders and under your feet. Start with your feet hip width apart and adjust wider if you need to increase the band tension.
• squat fully down to near parallel so that your hip flexors engage and the glutes and hamstrings are recruited.
• Push knees outwards to activate the side of your glutes

The key is to keep your glutes contracted the entire time

RESISTANCE BAND LEG WORKOUT #2

Leg extension: with band: 3 sets x reps 15 each side

• Sit on a chair or bench and put the resistance band around your feet
• Make a 90-degree bend in your knees
• Flex one foot and lift it until almost straight, contracting your quads

Calf Raises: 3 sets x 25 reps

• From standing, move onto your toes, raising you higher
• Lower slowly until feet are flat
• Press the calf muscles back up

Straight Leg Deadlifts: 3 sets x 15 reps

• Place the band underneath your feet with your legs hip width apart.
• Grab the bands about half way wrapping them around your hands one time.
• With the back in a neutral position, stand up, keeping the legs straight
• Slowly lower the body, pushing the hips move back as the bands lower

Banded Bulgarian split squat: 3 sets x 15 repetitions

• Put the band over your shoulders and step on the other end with your right foot.
• Place the left leg back behind you with your left foot on a bench. It should look like a lunge, but with your left leg elevated.
• Bend the right leg with control until the leg of your left knee almost touches the ground.
• Fire the right leg back up, pressing hard into the ground while squeezing your glute and hamstring muscles.
• Switch to the opposite leg placing the right leg on the bench with your left leg stepping on the exercise band in front and repeat.

Lateral Band Walk: 3 sets x 10 reps each side

• For this exercise you need a resistance loop band commonly called the booty band workout band.
• Place the band around your legs at the mid height of your thigh. From a standing position bend into a partial squat.
• Step to one side in a controlled motion for 10 reps and then return to the starting position with the

Key takeaways

It can be tempting to skip leg day, but building muscular legs will help you look, feel, and perform better than ever, in and out of the gym. Use resistance bands alone or with weights to get the most out of your leg workout.

Need a high quality set of resistance bands? We offer built to last resistance band packages that will allow you to perform each of these quad, hamstring, and glute exercises for years to come.