The case for consistent lower-body training, plus the new group fitness class that checks the box.
“Workouts from hell.” According to Equinox COACH Johnny Soto, that’s how members often describe leg days.
Understandably so. Your lower body contains some of your biggest muscles, including the gluteus maximus and quadriceps femoris, so training them uses a lot of energy. In other words, squats, deadlifts, and the like are “very, very demanding,” says Soto, who coaches at Equinox East 85th Street. It’s why your heart rate climbs when doing an exercise like Bulgarian split squats.
Even though those lower-body workouts are easy to hate, they’re vital for well-being and performance.
Why You Need Leg Training
Your legs play a crucial role in nearly every basic movement: walking, running, climbing stairs, or standing up from a chair. To continue doing these essential activities, especially as you age, you need to keep those muscles strong and joints mobile. Enter: lower-body days. A squat will help you lower down and stand up from the couch with ease. A deadlift will help you pick your child up off the floor without tweaking your lower back. A walking lunge will prepare you to complete a difficult hike.
But functionality is just the start. Lower-body training plays a major role in athletic performance. “As someone who lifts and runs HYROX and marathons, leg training is very, very crucial for myself, as well as my clientele,” says Soto. “It improves power production, improves proprioception (positional awareness), and improves mind-muscle connection.” A basketball player might do power-building depth jumps and plyo lunges for a better jump shot. A soccer player might perform lateral lunges with knee drives, building agility and power to support quick directional changes on the field.
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Mobility work completes the picture: “We want to make sure our legs and our ankles are mobile enough, and our hips are strong and mobile enough, to transition and absorb the force between point A to point B side to side, or point A to point B back and forth or up and down,” says Soto.
Neglecting to train your legs can, over time, contribute to potential aches and pains. In runners, Soto says this undertraining can lead to knee issues. “Running has a lot of impact on the joints, but the muscles are not being trained adequately. They're not being put under load. They're not being stressed in resistance-based training,” he explains. Lacking strength in the quads, hip rotators, and hip flexors, for instance, may contribute to patellofemoral pain syndrome (pain in the front of the knee) and patellar tendinopathy (an overuse injury that causes pain in the tendon below the kneecap), research suggests.
“Strength would then stabilize the surrounding joints,” says Soto. “Everything is interconnected with the kinetic chain.”
What’s more, research suggests that strong, powerful legs — as a proxy for physical fitness — may support your brain health. A study of more than 1,500 older adults found a positive relationship between lower-extremity strength and cognitive performance, regardless of age, physical activity, and other variables. Another observational twin study discovered that increased leg power was tied with improved cognitive aging, even when common genetics and early-life environment were controlled. While lower-body training on its own won’t sharpen your brain, it can contribute to the overall muscular fitness gains that do.
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The Keys to an Effective Leg Day
Time and again, Soto sees people make one major mistake on leg days: glossing over the warm-up. “You want to focus on getting that blood flow, that oxygen transporting all over your body, especially transported to those muscles that you're using,” he says. “For the first 10 minutes, we're focusing on slow movements, connecting mind to muscle, connecting breath to movement.” Your barbell squat day should start off with bodyweight squats, for instance, and other dynamic, load-free movements. Doing so can help lower the risk of injury, he says.
Your leg day workout itself should incorporate all planes of motion, using side-to-side (frontal plane), forward-and-backward (sagittal plane), and rotational (transverse plane) exercises. Bake in movements like lateral lunges, deadlifts, and transverse step-ups. Think about the movement patterns you use in your sport and everyday life; step-ups, for example, mimic climbing stairs and stools to reach the highest shelf of the pantry.
Don’t forget to train bilaterally (both legs) and unilaterally (one leg at a time) to prevent and correct muscle imbalances, says Soto. Try Bulgarian or standard split squats, kickstand or single-leg Romanian deadlifts, and single-leg hops. While you’re at it, stop sleeping on wall sits, says Soto. They “contribute to increased knee stability and knee strength, whether you're starting those loaded or unloaded,” he explains. “You'll definitely be feeling those wall sits in the quads.”
Train Your Legs: On the Floor or In the Studio
Programming a lower-body workout on your own can be overwhelming. To take out the guesswork, connect with a Coach at your Club. Or, head to the Main Studio for Leg Day, a new Equinox exclusive class that builds strength with heavy loads, timed intervals, and exercises built around fundamental movement patterns (squat, hinge, lunge, carry, and unilateral work). You’ll never think about skipping leg day again.