Key Reasons to Build Lower Body Strength
Friends don’t let friends skip leg day.
Training your legs consistently definitely has its reasons why people are so obsessed over leg day. But unfortunately, people may often skip this important workout to focus on other areas. Leg workouts come with many physical gains and a never-ending list of benefits. Though there are countless reasons why leg day and lower body strength are important, here are a couple that’ll definitely change your mind.
It's Essential to Functional Movement
Functional movements are the ones we use every day; movements that keep us strong for life. For example, each time you pick an object up from the ground, you perform a deadlift. Every time you sit in your chair, you do a squat. Lower body strength is essential to maintaining these functional movement patterns. Without a strong lower body, it would be a struggle just to get yourself up off the floor.
It Can Help You Hit Your Fitness Goals
Want to run faster, hike farther, lift heavier? Lower-body strength is a major component of all those activities and more. The stronger your lower body, the easier it will feel to run hills or tackle an intense hike or finally squat that new one-rep max.
Of course, you don't want to entirely ignore other factors of your fitness, such as cardiovascular endurance, which is essential for powering those long runs and hikes. But if you focus on lower body strength, those 30-inch box jumps in your next CrossFit workout will feel like nothing.
Burn more Calories, Build more overall Muscle
Our gluteus maximus (aka, our buttocks) is the largest muscle in our bodies. With that being said, working out larger muscles in our bodies including our buttocks require more energy, therefore, it keeps our heart rates up while burning more calories. Doing compound exercises, which works out our bigger muscles including our lower bodies also gives us the better hand at overall muscle build.
Improves Form and Athleticism
Because our legs are one of our biggest muscles, regularly training legs helps us reduce the risk of injury. Lower body strength and training legs helps our range of motion in other muscles and exercises, creating more effective workouts that’ll give us better results. You’ll also be a better athlete in other sports and fitness because of a stronger body foundation.
Increases Metabolism
In addition to better endurance and athleticism, training lower body also promotes a higher metabolism rate. Though weight training can help build and maintain healthy muscle mass, stronger legs means better performance for our physical health.
Promotes Mental Discipline
It takes a lot of focus, determination, and control in an effective leg workout. It also takes a lot of time and patience to develop proper form to perform for better results. Leg days promotes a healthy mental discipline that could definitely affect the way we think about our fitness goals.