Building muscle throughout your whole body is great even if you just want to have a nice set of six pack abs. In fact, have a strong lower body is the basic foundation for getting a strong core. How great would you look if only your stomach was toned and nothing else? Not that great! Also, having more lean muscle increases fat burn. In this article I’m going to show you how to build leg muscle doing some simple exercises at home.

Leg Exercise #1: Squats

The fundamental power exercise, this simple exercise is the bread and butter workout that builds strength for the whole body. You can do different variations of squats including overhead squats, barbell squats, dumbbell squats, etc. If done correctly, this exercises contracts not just your leg muscles, but also your core stomach and back muscles, it’s a total body effort to even do 1 repetition.  When doing squats, it’s crucial to keep good posture, never sacrifice form just to squeeze in more reps, quality over quantity every time.

One of my favorite variations of the squat is the power squat, which is basically a regular squat, but as you go up you jump from the bottom upwards and put your arms above your chest. I do about 4 sets of those, each set is about 45 seconds non-stop doing as many as I can. I restrict resting periods to about 15 seconds.

Leg Exercise #2: Lunges

Lunges are the compliment exercise to squats. To do these, all you do is get step and lean forward so that your knee touches your chest and push back up and do it again with your other leg. Like squats, there are also different variations you can do lunges. You can do dumbbell lunges where you hold 2 dumbbells, one on each hand as you lunge forward and back up. This increases intensity and promotes more muscle growth while speeding up fat loss. You can do side step lunges, which are similar to regular lunges only instead of lunging forward you go to the side, this helps stretch your muscles and also contracts your core muscles as well.

Leg Exercise #3: Hamstring Extension

This workout can be done with either an exercise ball, leg weights, or a machine. To do it with an exercise ball you lay flat on the ground with both heels on the ball, then you pull the ball towards you, then back. To perform this exercise with leg weight, simply strap the weights to your lower legs, lay flat on your stomach, and lift your legs up, it works out your hamstrings as well as other stabilizer muscles around your legs. I like to do these almost every time before I go running as it prevents injury and really warms up my legs.

Leg Exercise #4: Leg Press

This exercise requires a machine, I don’t usually like machine workouts, but this particular exercise is ok because the machine removes negative stress from the rest of your body and instead forces the weight just on your legs thus relieving pain from your back. You might have to go to your local gym, however, it works great to build up your quads and butt.

Leg Exercise #5: Cycling

Even though stationary cycling is considered a cardio workout, if you do it with some resistance it becomes one of the best leg building workouts you can do that prevent injury as well. I usually do about 15 minutes of cycling with moderate level of resistance, it really burns my quads, calves, and hamstrings! I highly recommend resistance cycling if you are serious of building your legs. Most stationary bikes these days are very affordable, I personally use a Schwinn bike as I feel the brand builds quality products, here’s a good bike from Schwinn.

Building your leg muscles is crucial to achieving a nice set of six pack abs, as these exercises force your ab muscles to work harder during training sessions.

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The holiday season is a great time to get together with close friends and family, but one thing most people never think about is that these are the months where you gain the  most weight. In this article I’m going to talk about how to prevent weight gain during the holidays.

Restrict your dessert in-take

Desserts like pumpkin pie are very high in sugar and is one of biggest reasons people gain weight during the holidays and have a harder time trying to slim down during the new year resolution extravaganza. A good alternative to traditional sugary desserts would be all-natural fruit salads, yogurt with fruits and/or granola, these are tasty and very healthy, smarter choices are easier than ever.

Prioritize your figure

“I’ll just lose it all in the new year.” This is the mindset most people have during the holiday, including me. But if you consider your body and keep conscious of it during the holidays, you might find yourself making healthier eating choices. A lot of times it isn’t just about choosing tastier foods over healthier foods, it’s just about smarter choices because there are healthy foods that taste just as good as the “fatty” foods.

Stay Active

Try to remain physically active so that your metabolism remains high, a higher metabolism leads to a slimmer body. One idea you can try doing is playing a sport as a family, it not only keeps you fitter, but you are also helping your family!

Give yourself a number

That’s right, make a caloric goal for each holiday feast and reward yourself if you manage to be under a certain amount!

“I gotta have my holiday feasts”

If you just have to have your full holiday meals, you could still prevent weight gain by remaining active and eating healthier during the non-holiday days.

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If you stay up late at time, most of the infomercials you’ll see running are either sleep-deprived products or ab devices that claim to shed away your belly fat fast without you doing any real work.

But, has anyone ever stopped to think, “Hey, if these devices work, then why are there always new ab devices entering the market that claim to be the ‘best’ fat-busting ab gizmo?” The truth is, all of these “miracle” ab devices don’t work in helping you burn fat and are complete gimmicks.

For example, the ab belt claims to help people rid their belly fat by just wrapping around their mid section and increasing fat burn by stimulating muscle contractions through some kind of pulse.

But this doesn’t help you lose belly fat! These products merely massage your stomach making it feel warm as if it has had some kind of workout.  And remember, you can’t burn stomach fat from doing sit-ups, so even if this device is as a good as doing regular situps, it still wouldn’t help you burn that stomach fat.

Please educate yourself about how the real athletes and celebrities lose weight by checking out some of my other how-to articles here:

Foods that burn belly fat

Best way to burn fat calories

Fastest way to get a six pack

One of key determining factors in burning fat is a proper nutrition plan, regular meals your body needs to fuel it to burn stored fats around the whole body. Refer to my first article I listed above for some of the healthiest and tastiest foods you can consume to burn fat.

I also recommend you watch Isabel’s video on which foods you should put on your “do not touch” list and which ingredients actually prevents us from losing weight.

Personally I have used one of these infomercial abdominal products called the “Total Tiger” which was just a variation of the ab roller. All it did for me was cause pain on my back, and maybe helped my abs as much regular situps would. The abs industry knows what their market wants, an easy way to get abs.

But there really isn’t an “easy” way to get six pack abs, however, it’s not “hard” to get a lean toned stomach. Instead of getting a gimmicky ab product, just get a set of dumbbells and do resistance training. I can’t believe so many people are still buying these late-night infomercial products with today’s free information about fitness. Money is better spent on a fitness program and some weights, such as Mike Geary’s Truth About Six Pack Abs, also highly recommended.

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